The End
by Ocean of Ashes
Summary: Ray and Neela's story after the accident told through snapshots of the lives of other members of the team at County.
1. Ray and Neela

Disclaimer: All material related to the ER is not of my creation and does not belong to me.

Author's Note: It's been widely speculated that Season 14 will be ER's last season. The way I see it, there's no way that the writers can tie up all the loose ends they seem to be in the process of creating, so I have an urge to tell them how it should be done. So how about this for an ending?

Spoilers: _Massive _spoiler warning. Did you see that? I cannot warn you enough, this _contains major spoilers. _This piece of writing gives away what is rumoured to be the Season 13 finale, so if you haven't read the spoilers, don't read this (much as I would like you to). Honestly, if you don't know them, turn back now, but please feel free to come back at the end of the season, as it doesn't go beyond that. Sorry to be so repetitive, but I don't want to get shouted at for spoiling anyone; I don't think I can make the warning clearer than this.

The End 

It was a warm spring evening, not late, but late enough that a few stars had begun to shine somewhere way above the city streets. There were flowers out in the park as they walked along, Neela wasn't sure what they were but she savoured their sweet scent appreciatively, and the first breath of summer was in the still air.

She and Lucien were on their way home from dinner together. It wasn't the first time he had taken her out. In fact, they had been out so many times now, dinner, lunch, the odd theatre trip, art galleries, to visit his sister, even a weekend away in Vancouver last fall, that she supposed she should know by now what they were doing, but she still wasn't sure. Others would call it a relationship, but they preferred not to put a label on it, for fear of… she wasn't sure what they were afraid of. Everything probably, past, present and future. Especially the past.

They had been out no less than seven times before he first tried to kiss her, and four more after that before he had actually managed to touch her lips without stalling and pulling himself away before he reached them. The first time he kissed her, she hadn't been surprised; she had known from the several false starts that it was coming, so she had plenty of time to decide whether or not to let him.

In the end, she did. And it wasn't so bad. In fact, it had been quite nice, nice to be held again, nice to feel a little less horrible than she did most of the rest of the time. And now it was nice having someone to come home to at night. She had lived alone since she had left… Well, for a long time, and she had found the companionship surprisingly welcome. He might not be the greatest passion of her life, but she liked him, more than liked him, and was grateful to him. He was a lot more than she deserved.

They were strolling hand in hand, taking their time. Nothing they did, except at work of course, was in a hurry. It was as if he knew that she couldn't manage much at a time. As they were walking, Lucien paused in his stride, bringing her to a halt also. They were under a tree, and near enough to a street lamp to be bathed in its soft glow.

She sensed there was something amiss; he had been unusually quiet and pensive all evening, so turned to look at him. 'Lucien, is everything okay? You've been subdued all evening, it's not like you.'

He let out a weary sigh. He had hoped that she wouldn't have noticed his mood, but he should have known that she knew him well enough now to realise there was something going on.

'Neela, I…' He stopped, not knowing what to say, how far to go.

Her dark eyes gazed up at him, a flicker of fear lighting their haunted depths. 'Lucien, what is it? You're scaring me.'

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.' He took both her hands in both of his. 'Neela, I've been wanting to say this to you for a very long time, but I didn't know how, or even if I should. But I think it's time now.

'I never thought I would meet someone, have someone in my life. And then you came along, and you're beautiful and intelligent and one of the best surgeons I have ever met, and I'm… I'm in love with you.' She parted her lips to speak, but he gave her a slight shake of his head, and she stopped herself. 'I love you, but I don't expect you to feel the same. I know what you've gone through, everything that's happened, and I understand all that. I know I'm not… I know this is different to what was before. But I was wondering if, just maybe, you would…'

He paused in his speech, and fumbled in his pocket for something. Slowly, he drew out a small, navy blue velvet box, and opened it, revealing a very simple, very stunning diamond set in a platinum band. 'I was wondering if you would do me the very great honour of marrying me?'

Neela was dumbstuck. She felt like a truck had just hit her, knocked her right off her feet. Not in a bad way, but just, the shock. Even though he had never said it before, she had known he was in love with her. They had an easy understanding as a couple, and didn't need words to express things like feelings. Words were too hard anyway.

But she hadn't expected this. At no point so far had she regretted her relationship with Lucien, she had been more than happy to be swept along by the status quo, but this was… big. So many decisions she had made in her life had gone so terribly wrong that she never wanted to make another decision again. So far, she had been doing well on that front, but not anymore. This definitely required a decision.

Lucien was a good man, one of the best she knew; a kind man, and she respected him a lot, possibly more than anyone else she had ever met. The tiny part of her soul that wasn't still buried in her wrecked past did love him, but there wasn't a lot left of her heart to love with. Her heart wasn't hers to give away anymore. She didn't feel that fiery passion that lit her up from the inside out, she didn't get breathless when she saw him, but he made her feel, well, maybe not whole again, but a bit less broken. As if although life wasn't entirely worth living, it wasn't quite worth dying either. It was a balance that with his unending help over these last years, she had learnt to live with.

She looked at him waiting, his hopeful eyes fixed down on her. Seeing his upright stance, his honest, open look she was suddenly stuck by a similarity with someone else she had once known. Someone who was all the things that Lucien was; a good doctor, a kind man, who she respected, loved, liked. Someone who would make a fabulous husband. Any girl would be lucky to have someone like that, certainly a girl that had done all the things; she had would be very lucky indeed.

And if she said yes, there would always be someone to come home to at night. Someone to hold her in the darkness when the nightmares and memories that haunted her ceaselessly overwhelmed her and the sobs racked her body so hard she thought she would shatter into a million pieces. She didn't know if she could cope alone anymore, and it would be nice know that she wouldn't have to feel that cold, debilitating loneliness ever again.

Oh, and the gratitude. Not that that was a good enough reason to marry someone, but surely it ranked high enough to be considered a component part in the decision? It seemed so long ago, half a lifetime, that Michael had carried the can for her and saved her from getting fired. He had saved her career in medicine, and this man standing opposite her now had _made_ her career in medicine. He had been the one to pull the strings, to offer her the surgical residency when there was no position open. He had carefully, painstakingly taught her everything he had learnt from his countless years of experience. He had made her into someone who, even in modesty she had to admit, was one of the best surgeons around. Her single minded dedication helped of course, but she knew it was down to him, to his patience, and his love.

Caring, patient, good. Yes, she had married that man before. Lucien and Michael were so similar in so many ways. And so different from… someone else. She cut off that line of thought. There was nothing to be gained from that.

She had taken the safe option when she married Michael. Okay, so on the surface, it might not have been that safe; getting married in a whirlwind on the same day he proposed, but at the end of the day, it had been safe, he had been safe.

And the safe option had been the wrong one then. It hadn't seemed so wrong when she did it, but time soon showed her that it was as far from being right as it was possible to be. So many people had been hurt, devastatingly, irreparably hurt. She had _ruined lives_ by marrying Michael. Ruined her own, not that that mattered, but ruined… she couldn't even think his name.

People knew not to mention him anymore. Not that it was much of a problem; three years on, and half the people in the hospital didn't even know him. Abby and Luka lived in Croatia. Since Pratt left, the closest thing she had to a friend, other than Lucien, was Sam. They had never been particularly close before, but in a place full of new staff, they represented an older era that in a sea of changing faces didn't seem to exist anymore.

Her eyes had slid away from him, into the middle distance, and he knew she was lost in thought. Thoughts of the past. He knew she could never truly leave them behind, she had been through too much for the scars to ever heal.

Although she couldn't see him standing before her anymore, she knew he was there, still waiting, patient as always.

These last years had stretched into one blurred disaster of tragedy after tragedy. She had made so many mistakes that she couldn't even remember them all. But one thing, one shaft of light that pierced through the gloom, that had come to her was that there was no point in making mistakes if you didn't learn from them.

Everything had gone wrong before when she married a good, kind man who she thought, rather than felt, would be her mate for life. That was where it all started. She had always thought that her wedding day would be the beginning of a new life, and she had been right, but not in a way that she had ever imagined.

And now she was faced with the same choice again. This was her chance for atonement. She could never make everything, or even anything, okay again, but she was being given a chance to do the right thing, and this time, she would do it. This time, she would learn from her mistakes.

Finally, she looked up at him, meeting his steady, empathetic gaze, his gentle blue eyes.

'Lucien, I'm sorry. You're amazing, you're unbelievable, and I would never have lived through what I have without you. And I mean that in many ways. You're all I've got left in the world, but I can't marry you.'

Once she had finished her empassioned speech, she had to look away, unable, unworthy, to continue to meet his eyes. She didn't know what sort of reaction she expected from him, he was too dignified for tears she knew, and she couldn't see him being angry either, and she wasn't sure what that left. But what he did say took her by surprise.

'I know.' He snapped the lid of the box shut, trying to force to the back of his mind that he was closing the lid on his last chance he would ever have of being happy, of a normal life. He loved her, and that was why he was willing to sacrifice himself for her happiness. 'That's why I made a few calls.'

He saw a little frown of confusion pass across her face, which cleared when suddenly, in the silence of the still evening, Neela heard an unfamiliar noise. Sort of like…wheels. She felt Lucien put his arms gently on her shoulders and her turned her around.

Before she had even spun all the way round, her heart was beginning to race, and her chest somehow constrict at the same time. This couldn't possibly be happening. _He_ couldn't possibly be here. Her mind was full, but not a single thought formed coherently.

And even though she couldn't believe what she was seeing, through the haze of tears that had sprung to her wide, frightened eyes, he slowly came into focus.

Apart from the wheelchair, he looked exactly the same, the same old jeans, the same scruffy t-shirt, the same beautiful, beautiful face. When she looked in the mirror, the reflection looking back at her looked ten years older than her years, yet he didn't seem to have aged a bit. If there had been lines of pain and suffering, they had either faded with time, or in her myriad of feelings at him being just ten feet away from her, she couldn't see them. And just as it always had, the sight of him made her knees weak and the blood pump heavily in her veins.

'Hello Neela.' Three years in Louisiana had accentuated the southern drawl that used to be only barely detectable in his voice.

'Ray, I…' Even if she hadn't been in too much shock to speak, she didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she could say. For the first few months, she had actually believed that he would return her calls, and for several months after that, she still hoped he would. But he didn't, he never did. And she had come to see that if he didn't want anything to do with her, then that was his choice; a choice he had every right to make.

So why now?

She didn't know how long they stood there, staring at each other. She felt like something was spinning, but she wasn't sure if it was just her head, or the entire earth rotating around its axis at a whole new speed. When she came out of her reverie, she could no longer feel the light pressure of hands on her shoulders, and a quick look around confirmed that Lucien had gone.

Ray had wheeled himself closer to her, and he was looking up at her expectantly. Using the chair annoyed him, he hated having to crane his neck up at people.

'Umm, do you want to go and sit on a bench or something?'

She could see the way he had to angle his neck to look up at her, and immediately agreed. When she was perched on the edge of a bench, and he was parked up next to her, they waited, unsure of how to begin. Even if they _could_ begin.

When the silence had gone on so long that Ray began to feel it burning in his ears, he made himself speak, trying not to let his voice shake like his hands, buried in his lap so she couldn't see them, were. 'So, how have you been?'

She was glad to hear he sounded as nervous as she felt.

'Good,' she lied. She didn't know what else to say. Obviously he knew about her and Lucien. 'I umm… I went to visit Abby and Luka in Croatia last summer. It was good to see them again; Joe's really growing up, he's starting school soon.'

Ray nodded. It was only small talk, but he guessed they had to start somewhere. 'That must have been great, I've heard that Croatia is really beautiful.'

'Umm, yes, it is.'

There was another silence while they searched for more. She didn't feel brave enough to ask him how he had been, what he had been doing, even though she ached to know.

It saddened Ray that they couldn't seem to find the ability to talk to each other. If he could turn back the clock, to any point in his life, it would have been the heady, carefree days of rooming together. Of beers and poker and endless banter. Of waking up in the morning and knowing, at some point, she would be there to brighten his day. Given the choice of having all that back, or his legs, he knew which it would be.

'So, how's the old place? County?' He added, when she looked unsure of where he meant.

'It's the same as always. Different faces mainly, but still the same. I'm a surgical attending now.' She couldn't help a note of pride creeping into her voice at that. Work was all she had left to be proud of.

He looked across at her, impressed. 'Wow, an attending. Well done. You must be on a nice juicy salary with that gig. Better than a disability allowance.'

If she hadn't been too guilty, too ashamed, to look at him, she would have seen the sparkle in his eyes, teasing her. But she didn't, and soon he realised that she thought he might be serious.

He gently nudged her, and let out a brief laugh. 'Neela, I'm joking. I have a job, I'm still a doctor, an attending now as well.' He saw the relief flow into her features. 'I work in the ER of my local hospital. I have prosthetics I use for work, the chair bugs the hell out of me, but it's kind of a long way here from Baton Rouge, and they were beginning to pinch a bit, so I had to use this old thing. Not quite how I wanted you to see me again, but still.'

He had been trying to keep things light, but he saw that joking about his accident troubled her. He hadn't meant it to, but he was able to joke now. It had taken him the longest time, but it hadn't ruined his life, his world hadn't fallen apart around his ears like he had thought it would. In fact, he was happier now than he had been for a full year before he had left Chicago.

When his mother first took him home, he had been in shock he thought, and stayed that way for a long time. Then came the denial, anger, bargaining, depression, all of it in turn. He knew it was over limbs, and not a life, but he went through the stages of grief all right. Acceptance had been a long time coming. But when his mum had slipped out of the house one afternoon, and returned from a trip to the airport with a shaggy rocker, tired from his flight from California, things had begun to get better. Brett had bullied, cajoled and persuaded Ray out of his dark pit of depression and self loathing. It was Brett who dragged his sorry ass to the hospital for physiotherapy, prosthetics fittings, counselling, the works. He didn't know what hole he would even now be wallowing in without him.

He hadn't left until a fully fit Ray, standing as tall as ever, had accepted the job they offered him at the local hospital that had been his second home for the previous months. After the party he had thrown for him, Brett had jumped back on a plane, with a solemn entreaty to call him, whenever, and Ray's heartfelt, emotional thanks ringing in his ears.

Once his life had been rebuilt, Ray began to think about what he had left behind. He didn't like to dwell too much on the past, not knowing how much he could take without slipping back into the mire that he had so nearly drowned in, but there was someone who he knew deserved thanks.

Katey had come when he called, not complaining that it was a full year without a word after she had packed him into a car headed southwards. And when he asked her to stay, she said yes, transferring her internship across three states to be with him. And for the first few months, it had been as good as it ever was, better. She didn't patronise him, and she kept him on his toes, so to speak. But in the end, he couldn't do it. When he looked at her, it wasn't her he saw looking back at him, and he knew that someone as fabulous as she was deserved to be loved with a whole heart, someone who loved her for who she was, not who he wished she was. The memories were too great to overcome, and when he told her, she understood that too. She was in New York now, and loving it. The work was hard, but she was thriving on it. She was in her penultimate year of a surgical residency at a private hospital, and she said it suited her well.

So now he was here, back in Chicago, with no ties. Well, no ties beyond those he was here to see whether or not were still in existence. He hoped they were, but he had no expectations. He had learnt the hard way that that road led only to disappointment.

The minutes ticked away, the sound of traffic far away and nearly drowned by the breeze rustling the leaves of the tree overhead.

Finally, she turned to look at him. 'Ray, I –'

Her voice had purpose, and he knew what it was. He stopped her, reaching out to take her hand.

'No Neela, don't say it. Don't say any of it.'

'But I have to.' It hurt him so much to see the look in her eyes that he almost had to look away. There had been all the pain, all the suffering that he had managed to eradicate from his own eyes, but mixed with a horrific, terrible guilt as well.

'No, you don't. It was my fault as much as yours. All this. If I had had the courage way back when, before Michael, before everything, to tell you I loved you, we would have never have come to this. You would have thought that after watching you push me away and seeing what came of that, I wouldn't make the same mistake, but I guess I did.'

He paused, but she didn't say anything.

'I'm sorry I didn't return your calls.'

She couldn't believe he was sitting here, next to her, apologising to her. After everything she had done to him, he was saying sorry. He was trying to take her blame off her shoulders, trying to make things better. It had always been that way, she thought.

'I'm sorry you didn't want to.'

They were quiet again, but still holding hands. He began to stroke the back of hers with one cold thumb, moving almost imperceptibly, but it was enough.

Again, she was the first to break the silence. She sounded incredulous, as if she was in a dream and she wasn't sure if she was awake or not. 'I can't believe you're here.'

He was quick to reply. 'I can't believe I didn't come sooner.'

'I have to ask Ray, why now? Why did you come back? Did Lucien really call you?' It was typical Lucien, she thought. Always the greater good, always. What other man would propose to a girl, so sure that she would say no that he had already arranged for the love of her life to be waiting in the shadows for her?

'Yes, he did. But he wasn't the first.' He didn't know if people here knew Katey had left Chicago to come to him. Knowing her discretion, he suspected not. But he wasn't talking about her.

Neela looked sharply at him. She hadn't thought anyone here was still in contact with him. They certainly hadn't told her they were. Maybe someone had had some foolish notion that to keep it from her was for the best.

'What do you mean? Who?' She hoped he wasn't going to say Katey. She knew it was a hope she had absolutely no right at all to have, but she couldn't help a little leap of jealousy in her heart.

'When Pratt left to take the Chief of Medicine position over at Northwestern, he called me to say there was an attending position coming free at County. If I was interested.'

She looked at him in disbelief. But… It wasn't possible. He couldn't be coming back. It had been ages since Pratt had gone, so he can't have accepted it. Could he?

'Greg left three months ago.'

'And his job hasn't been filled yet, has it?'

Slowly, Neela shook her head, holding her breath.

'They've been keeping it open for me while I worked out my notice and helped them to find a replacement for me back in Baton Rouge.'

'Are you saying that you're…?'

'When Dubenko called me, it was initially in an official capacity. Greg put my name forward to him as his replacement, and he called me to offer me a job. But we soon got talking. I don't know if he meant to or not, but he made me realise that no matter what mistakes have been made, there is always a chance to learn from them.'

'That's funny, he made me realise the same thing.'

His hazel eyes locked with hers, looking into her soul. 'What have you learnt from your mistakes Neela?'

She took a deep breath, and drew confidence from the squeeze of his hand. She had never put the deep realisation that she had gradually come to into words before.

'That… That no matter how far or how fast I run, it will never be far enough or fast enough to forget about you. What about you?'

His heart suddenly began to beat so hard in his chest that he felt it was going to explode. He hadn't expected her to make an admission like that so soon; he knew only too well how hard it was for her to admit her feelings. But then, he supposed, they had both been through so much that all layers of pretence and evasion had been stripped away to this moment. Only honesty would do now.

And so he gave her an honest answer. 'The same.' He flashed her a cheeky grin. 'Although my running these days is distinctly metaphoric.'

She couldn't believe that he was able to joke about things. She hoped he wasn't using humour to mask deeper wounds, but however deeply she looked, there was no hidden hurt in his eyes; they were full of an unhaunted light. God, his eyes. She felt like she could drown in their depths.

She couldn't imagine laughing about what he was laughing about, but then, he had had three years to get used to the loss of his legs, and he was strong. Far stronger than she ever was.

She had to say something about it. 'Ray, I can't believe you lost your legs and you can make jokes about it.'

'Legs are overrated,' he answered flippantly. Then, seeing that she had asked a serious question, he returned her gaze, all traces of frivolity banished from both his eyes and his tone. 'They only help you to run, and look where that got us. It's the heart that matters.' He gave her an enigmatic smile. 'Not that I've got one of those either. That belongs entirely to you.'

Her whole world had stopped, and focussed in on this one moment, this one bench in a park on a spring evening. She thought her heart might have stopped as well. She hadn't thought that after so long he would still have this phenomenal, unbreakable hold over her. And she would never have dreamed that she would still have that hold over him.

'To me?'

'To you Neela, always to you. From the first moment I saw you, every moment I saw you.'

She had been fighting the tears ever since she saw him, but now they welled up and flowed freely down her cheeks, glistening in the lamplight. They were different tears to those late night sobs that Lucien smoothed away. They were… tears of relief. Relief that he was okay, relief that he didn't hate her. They might even be tears of happiness, although it was so long since she had been happy that she didn't think she'd recognise the feeling if it jumped up and slapped her in the face.

He reached out and wiped away the moisture. His touch sent shock waves through her.

'Would you like me to give it back?' she asked softly, referring to his heart, knowing from the look in his eyes his answer.

'Only if you're willing to do an exchange.'

Finally, for the first time since she had seen him, a smile crept across her face, and seeing it, it brought one to his as well. She was beautiful to him, but when she smiled… Man, it took his breath away. It always had.

'Nope, I don't think my heart's in a safe enough state to be moved from where it is.'

He raised a questioning eyebrow. 'And where is it?'

She took one of his hands, and placed it on her chest, over her heart. 'In your hands, Ray. Exactly where it's always been.'

'Neela…' he began, and then stopped. For a minute, they were sitting in a car, across town on a snowy night a long time ago.

He leaned forward slowly but decisively, and she came to meet him. Their lips brushed together softly at first, then, when she didn't pull away, he leant closer, kissing her more confidently. It was slow and sensual, and had their whole souls in it. Just like it had been before.

When, after an eternity, they broke away, breathless, and rested their foreheads against each other's, Neela saw that Ray now had tears on his cheeks to mirror her own.

'Ray, are we going to be okay?'

'I don't know if we can be. I really don't. But I've accepted the job; I'm coming back to Chicago. I want us to be okay.'

Her heart sang. She had never thought she would see him again, let alone have him back in her life. And she had definitely never allowed herself so much as the briefest flight of fancy that he would ever again touch her lips with his, run his hands through her hair and over her skin, kiss her in that way he did, like no-one else in the world.

And now he was here, here to stay.

But she had to warn him. They had to go into this with their eyes open. 'There's a long way to go. I'm still a mess Ray. I've been a mess for so long I don't know if I'm ever going to be any other way. I've been a mess since I married Michael, since before that even.'

He smiled his love at her. 'I'm here now. I'm here to help you.'

That sounded wrong to her. Fabulously, deliciously appealing, but not right. 'It shouldn't be this way round. I should be helping you.'

'Does it matter? As long as I'm here, and we're together, does anything else matter?'

'No,' she said eventually, leaning forward to kiss him again. 'Nothing matters in the world to me except you.'

Just before she met his lips, she slipped her mouth past them, and leaned towards his ear. What she whispered in it was so soft, so gentle, that he felt, rather than heard her words. But it was enough.

'I love you too Neela.'


	2. Abby and Luka

Disclaimer: As before

Spoiler Warning: As before

Author's Note: Despite my intentions very much to the contrary, it would appear that this is no longer a one-shot! Well, in fact, it still is in terms of Ray and Neela, but I've decided that they're not the only ones who deserve their happy ending. If inspiration strikes me, I might do this for all the main characters, but I might not, I really don't know yet. Let me know if there's anyone in particular you would like to see an ending for, and I'll see if I can think one up. This is set before the last chapter, roughly eighteen months after the end of Season 13 I guess, although it doesn't matter too much. Oh, and this is the first Abby and Luka piece I've posted on here, so please review to let me know what you think of it.

Abby sat in the too small seat and fussed with Joe's seatbelt, strapping him in next to her firmly enough to gain the nodded approval of the blue and yellow suited air stewardess. She wasn't looking forward to a long haul flight with a two and a half year old, as she knew there was no way that she could keep him quiet for that long. He had turned out to be an active child, and often keeping him quiet and still for as much as ten minutes was an achievement.

Shushing him through the safety announcement, trying to distract him with a toy train that her mother had sent him for his last birthday, she soon managed to find some cartoons on the little screen set into the back of the seat in front, and settled him down watching those.

She stuck her own headphones in her ears, pretending to watch a film so the drab looking businessman on her other side wouldn't try to engage her in conversation; she hated talking to people on planes, it was all pointless small talk, and she had more important things to concern herself with. She tipped her seat back a little, and rested her head on the uncomfortable headrest, letting her mind wander.

She couldn't quite believe she was actually doing this. She wasn't entirely sure she wasn't crazy. She was giving up a good job that she loved, taking her son out of nursery to leave the closest thing to a home she had ever had and flying to a new country, a new continent, and a new life. She knew no-one there but her husband, and not speaking the language, she doubted she would get to know anyone for a while.

When Luka had first got the call that his father was ill, Abby hadn't thought an awful lot of it. She had been concerned, obviously, but she had never met any of his family, so her worry was mainly for Luka, as she could see how upset he was.

And then, the next day, he had told her that he wanted to go back to Croatia. At first, she thought he meant for a visit, which appealed to her; it could be sort of an extended honeymoon, a month or so of meeting his family and friends, seeing places that were important to him, understanding what made him who he was a little more. But she soon realised that he wasn't talking about a holiday. He was talking about something entirely more permanent.

She wanted to talk him out of it, scared of what it might mean for them. It had taken them so many years to reach their state of happiness, so many mistakes, so much forgiveness, and when he said he was going, she felt like it had all been for nothing. But then he handed in his resignation, and she understood that this was something he had to do, and he was going to do it either with or without her support, so reluctantly, but with a smile on her face, she had given it to him. After all, one thing she did know was that when you had to do something for your family, you did it, no matter how much it put yourself, and those around you, out.

And so he had gone, leaving her behind in Chicago. He had asked her if she would go with him, but said that he would understand if she didn't want to. She hadn't wanted to. She was close to finishing her residency; only a year to go, and she wasn't quite willing to give all that up just then. For all they knew, his father could be dying, and slip away in a matter of weeks, then Luka could come home to America, and to her.

But it hadn't panned out like that. His father had broken his neck in a car accident, leaving him paralysed from the waist down and in need of constant care, but otherwise he was as hearty and hale as any man of eighty two could be, so Luka felt that he should stay. And when they spoke on the phone, Abby could hear that, despite missing her and Joe terribly, that he was actually enjoying himself. That fun side of him that she so rarely saw, that spark of life, was not a hidden depth in his voice as it normally was, his whole tone was light, without the burden that usually hung over him. When his old friend from med school, what had she been called? Dr Horvat, that was it, had alluded to it all that time ago, Abby hadn't believed her portrayal of Luka the prankster, Luka the good time guy, but hearing him now, she could tell that she was right.

It had been eighteen months now, since she'd been alone, and it had been so hard, much harder than she thought it would be. She told herself that she would be okay, that it wasn't forever, and that she was more than used to coping with life alone, but she soon discovered that without Luka, a rug had been pulled from beneath her feet and she couldn't cope at all. Of course, on the surface, the face she presented at work each day, she was fine, bright and happy. But inside, sitting in the apartment on her own at night after Joe was in bed, fighting with all her might the nearly overwhelming need for cigarettes, alcohol, and to let out the tears, she knew she was falling apart without him.

He had been back a few times to see her, Joe's birthday, then hers, and their first wedding anniversary. And each time, she hoped he might see something left in Chicago that would make him want to stay, but he never did, always saying that he was sorry to be going, but his eyes belying his words. Every time he left her again, she felt a little bit more lost, a little bit more empty.

Last time he had left, she felt so bleak that she had wangled some leave and bundled herself and Joe onto a plane to Croatia within a fortnight of his departure. The three weeks she had spent there had been utterly magical. She hadn't known what to expect of it, but she had discovered a beautiful country, once torn apart by war, which was now healing itself of its scars, and despite the still present hardships, full of joy. And she had discovered exactly the same in her husband.

That was when she realised that he wouldn't be returning to the States.

They sat down, late one night after dinner when his father and Joe were safely tucked up in bed, at the big old table in the big old kitchen of his father's house, with a cafeteria of steaming black coffee, and talked about it.

You're not coming back, are you?' she had said, trying to keep the tone of reproach from her voice, but hurt that he had obviously come to such a momentous decision without consulting or even telling her.

When he answered, his eyes had been sad for the first time since she had been there. 'I don't know Abby. I love you and Joe more than life itself. You saved me. When I came to Chicago, I was broken, haunted by memories and loss, and you fixed me. You are my life, I can't emphasise that enough.' He sensed from her crossed arms, her fixed jawline, and her forbidding gaze that touching her would not be appreciated, so he resisted the urge to reach across the table to her and take her hand in his. 'But Croatia is home. I haven't been back in so long that I thought I would feel nothing here, nothing but faint, buried memories, but it hasn't been like that. It's been…' He stopped, not sure enough of what he was trying to say to be able to put it into words.

Her eyes softened just a touch. 'It's been the final part of the circle, right? Yes, I saved you, yes, I fixed you, but here, Croatia, this has healed you.' He tried to interrupt her, but she carried on talking, preventing him.

'You don't have to apologise or justify yourself Luka, I can _see _the change in you; it's written all over your face. You laugh, you smile; not just at me and Joe, like you do in Chicago, but at _everything_. You're happy here. And your Dad needs you.'

He wasn't certain what she was trying to say to him, what point she was trying to make. She had summed up his feelings with a breathtaking accuracy, but said nothing of her own.

'Abby, I don't know what to say to you. I need you, _and_ I need this.' His hand waved freely around him, the gesture meant to indicate his new life in his old home. 'I can't choose, but I can't ask you to give up your life in America either. That wouldn't be fair.'

She had known deep down, what she had to do, but she was reluctant to admit it to herself. So she played for time. 'Can I sleep on it?' she had asked.

Needless to say, she hadn't so much as closed her eyes that night. All through the hours of darkness, she had lain there, next to his sleeping form, thoughts tumbling through her head in a never ending procession.

Come the morning, her mind had been made up. She had gotten up early, and made him coffee, bringing it up to him in bed. And when he opened his eyes, she greeted him in the tiny amount of Croatian she had managed to learn since she had been there.

'Dobro jutro.'

He looked up at her in surprise, the haze of sleep quickly clearing from his brain. 'Good morning to you too.' He took a sip from the mug she held out to him, wondering what she was thinking. Her eyes gave away nothing.

In the end, he had had to ask her. 'Croatian, Abby?'

'I thought I had better start practising,' she had replied.

And then the penny dropped, and in an instant, dreams that he hadn't dared to dream came true. 'Does that mean to say that you will… come here?' He couldn't help a tiny quaver creep into his voice, the nerves getting the better of him.

'Yes Luka. You're my husband, and I need you. When you first left, I wasn't sure how I felt. Don't forget Luka, I've been abandoned before by someone who told me he loved me, and I didn't know for sure you wouldn't do the same.' He tried to say that he would never do anything like that, that that hadn't been what this was about; leaving her was a necessarily evil, not a choice, but she didn't allow him to. 'No Luka, don't say it. I never thought John would leave me either, but he did. So I didn't know for sure that this was different.'

He felt ashamed. He knew the reason Carter had left her was to return to Africa to help him. Hell, he never would have gone in the first place if it hadn't been for him putting the damn idea in his head. Things could have turned out so differently for them all.

Before he allowed his thoughts to wander too far, he brought them back to the moment. She was still talking.

'But now I've come to realise that this is different. If I had really loved John, I could have gone after him. But I didn't. I didn't love him enough to give up what I had for him.' She paused, and from the look of love in her eyes, he knew what she was going to say next. 'But I am willing to give it up for you. I want to move to Croatia Luka. I want to be with you all the time, and forever, I don't care about anything else. Just you and Joe. I want us to be a family, a proper one, and I don't care what country that's in, just as long as that's the way it is.'

Sitting on the plane now, she remembered the way he hadn't said anything, he had just pulled her back into the bed alongside him, and they had reaffirmed everything they felt about each other for half the morning. It had been fantastic.

So that was what she was flying to. Now she had finished her residency, she wasn't so worried about giving up her job. When she first arrived in Croatia, she would take care of her father-in-law while Luka went out to work. The country was in desperate need of doctors, and he already had something lined up, and several more offers besides. Then, after a while, once she had settled and learnt enough of the language to be able to communicate on an understandable level, she too would get a job and their combined salaries, although nothing compared to American standards, should be enough to pay for a decent help for Luka's Dad and childcare for Joe.

All the goodbyes had been hard though.

She had dealt with her mother and Eric first, thinking that it would be best to get the most complicated ones over with at the beginning, giving her the maximum time to make sure they were okay before she had to go.

Eric hadn't taken it too well, but her Mum had reassured her. She had come to the bus station to wave her off, and while they were waiting, huddled up against the cold, she took her hands.

'Don't you worry yourself about Eric, Abby. Things haven't been so good for him recently; they tried him on a new combination of drugs and they didn't agree with him too well. He's back on his old ones again now, but he still… wavers a bit.'

'And what about you Maggie?' she had asked, wishing she hadn't left this difficult, emotional stuff until the final five minutes. It had been a three day visit, but even though she had told them on the first evening of her plans, they hadn't found the right moment to really talk about them. Or hadn't tried to.

'Oh, don't you worry about me. I'll be just fine. I always am you know Abby, eventually.'

'I do worry though.' Abby gave her mother a wry smile. 'I guess you could kind of call it a habit.'

Maggie shook her daughter's shoulders gently. 'It's one you're going to have to get yourself out of then, aren't you?' Seeing the doubtful look on her face, she continued. 'I mean it Abby. You go and live your life. If your husband is in Croatia, then that's where you should be too. In fact, I'm surprised you haven't gone sooner.'

Against her will, Abby felt tears prick at her eyes at her mother's selflessness. She knew that even though she wouldn't admit it, Maggie did need her. But here she was, telling her to go.

'I don't want you to feel like I'm abandoning you; I want to be here if you need me.' It was funny after so many years of running away, avoiding her mother, that when the moment finally came to break the cycle, she was dragging her heels.

Maggie reached up and stroked her daughter's cheek, wiping away a single tear. 'Do you know what I want Abby?'

Wordlessly, she shook her head.

'What I want, all I've ever wanted, is for you to be happy. And if this is what makes you happy, then I want it for you with all my heart. You're my little girl, and you mean the world to me. I know I haven't been much of a mother, and I probably don't have any right to say this, as I don't think I've had much to do with it, but I am so, _so_ proud of you.'

Even if Abby had been able to think of the right thing to say, she knew she couldn't squeeze out the words over the lump that had risen in her throat.

Maggie enveloped her in a long, crushing hug, and they stayed that way until the bus driver tooted his horn.

'Now, off you go. Get yourself on that bus before it leaves without you. Don't forget to write to me.'

'I'll write, call, the works, I promise. Goodbye Mum,' she had said quietly, before boarding the steps. She had waved until she couldn't see the station anymore, and cried for a while after that.

But eventually the tears had dried, and the pain had eased, although she had known that it would have eased quicker if Luka had been there to comfort her. She had had to be content with comforting herself with the thought that it wouldn't be long until he would be there.

There had been other goodbyes as well, all emotional but none with the underlying guilt and grief of her farewell to her family.

She had gone to visit Kerry before she went, and found her exactly where she said she would be, on the beach with her son. She looked happy and carefree these days, the Florida sunshine taking years off her. Like Luka, leaving Chicago agreed with her. The final goodbye, of course, had been tearful, but they had had a lovely weekend, taking the boys to all the tourist attractions. Henry of course had different tastes to two year old Joe, but they had all winded up having a lot of fun. Neither she nor Luka would have been where they were today without Weaver, so Abby had felt she had owed her a goodbye in person.

One person she hadn't looked forward to telling of her departure was Neela. The poor woman had lost so much, and Abby genuinely didn't know how much more she could take. Of course, she had Lucien now, or at least, so Abby suspected, but in all honesty, Dubenko, kind and caring though he was, was no substitute for what had gone before.

Having spent a week agonizing over how to break the news, Abby eventually came out with it at work one day, on a break they were taking, hiding out up on the roof from the chaos below.

'Neela, I need to tell you something.'

When Abby finally plucked up the courage to meet her eyes, she knew that her friend already knew what was coming.

'It's all right Abby. I've always known it was only a matter of time. I wouldn't expect you to stay here while Luka's in Croatia.'

'I'm so sorry.' She felt at a loss. She didn't have a clue what to say, what could lift that cold, dead look from Neela's haunted eyes.

'Don't be. I understand.'

'It's umm… going to be permanent.' She watched as Neela nodded, taking the next blow with all the stoicism of someone who had not the slightest ounce of fight left in them. 'I wish things didn't have to be this way.'

'Ah, but they do,' Neela replied. 'Really, Abby, don't worry about me. I'll be okay.'

Abby had looked at her deeply, questioningly. 'Will you Neela? Will you really?'

'No.' She knew there was no point in lying. They both knew she wouldn't be okay, and she probably never would be. 'But if I've survived until now, I'll survive this too. And I have Lucien now, he… helps.'

At that point, Abby had had an idea. 'Come with me. They're crying out for surgeons in Croatia, they'll welcome you with open arms. I could use a friend and you could definitely use a change of scene.'

But Neela had shaken her head, as Abby had suspected she would. 'I'd love to. But I can't. You're going to Croatia to make a new start, to be a family. You don't need me there.' Abby began to protest. 'No Abby, thank you, but you know I'm right. And I have to stay here. I've made my bed, as my mother would say; now I have to lie in it.'

There was a long enough pause for all the thoughts left unspoken to pass between them, and Abby, not being able to bear the sight of such pain and guilt and suffering, broke the silence.

'Well, you had better come and visit us.'

Neela had forced a watery laugh through the tears for her friend's sake. 'You bet. I'll be using your place as a holiday home, you can count on it.'

Abby had pulled her into a deep, bone crushing hug. 'You're always welcome, whenever you want. We will be delighted to see you there, as often as you like. And if you ever change your mind about moving…'

It had been Neela who had taken her to the airport to catch this flight, but there had been no more tears. Abby didn't think the other woman had any left to cry anymore.

There had been a leaving party at the hospital as well. She had been there a long time, and everyone commented on how it was the end of an era. She had replied that she wasn't that damn old, thank you, though she had appreciated the effort they had made for her. There had been a few presents, a lot of cake, and some fond memories to take away with her. But from now on, that would be all they would be, memories.

In the weeks before she left, there was one last person she tried to say a proper goodbye to. It had taken extreme methods of bribery to get Frank to hack into the old hospital staff records for her, and extract a number from them, but it had been to no avail. She didn't have the time to go to Baton Rouge, but she had called countless times, either getting no reply, or a cheery sounding woman whose voice went oddly distant every time she said where she was from, and who promised vaguely to pass on her messages. Once, the final time she tried, a different woman had answered, younger sounding, and somehow familiar, although the reaction had been exactly the same when she had given her name. It wasn't until a little while after she hung up that Abby suddenly placed the voice, and her heart bled for Neela. She reluctantly took the hint and gave up calling after that.

So that was how she had left the city she had called home for so long. She had said her goodbyes, tied up her loose ends.

The hours passed, sailing through the sky high above the Atlantic Ocean. Thankfully, Joe slept most of the time, and she herself drifted in and out of slumber, passing from thoughts to dreams, and back to thoughts again seamlessly.

They hit a patch of turbulence which woke Joe and, not liking the unfamiliar feeling of the movement of the plane, he fussed for a while, not quite bawling but making enough noise to earn her some angry glares. She rummaged in her bag for distractions, and settled on reading him a story. It passed the time until he fell asleep again.

When, after the longest time, the seatbelt signs flicked on, and she felt the plane beginning its descent, the first feelings of apprehension and anxiety began to trickle into her bloodstream. Up until now, it hadn't quite seemed to be happening, but now the reality was beginning to hit. She was really going to be living in a foreign country, she was going to have to learn to speak a whole new language. She had always been rubbish at languages, failing every French class she took until her teachers gave up trying to inflict it on such an unwelcoming mind. Suddenly, the thought occurred to her that she wasn't even going to be the same person anymore. Here in Croatia, she wouldn't be Doctor Lockhart; from now on, she would be Abby Kovac.

Abby Kovac.

She rolled it around in her head for a while, deciding that, despite its unfamiliarity, she kind of liked it. They had been married for getting on for two years now, yet she had never once used her married name. Until now. She had better get used to it.

She got confused as Hell in the baggage reclaim area. The signs were all in Croatian, and the tidbits that Luka had been teaching her since she had made the decision to join him were nowhere near enough to be of any use. She ended up just following the crowd, hoping for the best, and eventually accepting the help of her in-flight neighbour, the drab businessman that she had spent most of the last hours studiously avoiding conversation with.

But, her neck aching from the flight and her arms half dead, one from the weight of carrying Joe and the other from the effort required to try to keep the temperamental baggage trolley from taking out too many harassed travelers, when she entered the arrivals lounge, the pain and tiredness all became worthwhile.

In the sea of faces, his stood out, tall above the rest, and his dark, handsome features were illuminated with such anticipation and excitement and love that it made her heart skip a beat.

'Luka.'

'Daddy.'

Both she and Joe called out to him at the same time.

Hearing their voices, he followed the sound to pick them out from the stream of arrivals, and ran towards them. He crushed them to him, hugging them so tightly that Abby actually felt the breath being squeezed out of her, and Joe began to squirm.

Luka took him from her weary arms. 'Hey there my little man, how are you?'

Then he turned to Abby with love in his eyes. 'I've missed you.'

She smiled up at him. 'I've missed you too. Lots. But not anymore, hey?'

He shook his head. 'Never again.' He leaned down to her, kissing her deeply, lips a non-existent barrier between their souls.

When he broke away, his eyes were sparkling with happiness, which she knew was reflected in her own. A sense of deep belonging began to filter through her.

'Welcome to Croatia Abby. Welcome home.'


	3. Carter and County

Disclaimer: As before, except Aimée is mine.

Author's Note: Okay, I know I said no updates, but my dissertation is driving me crazy, and I needed to escape for a little while. And this wouldn't go away til I wrote it, so… Oh, and I didn't watch a lot of the early ER, but I'm sure I read somewhere that Carter once became addicted to pain meds after the attack on him and Lucy, so I am working on that premise. Sorry if I am wrong in this. This ficlet is set the latest of the three so far, maybe another couple of years on from the first one. I wasn't entirely sure what to do with this chapter to start with, as I can't see the nice, clear happy ending for Carter like I could for the others that I have written, but I think I like the way this has turned out, so please let me know your opinion.

The still air rang with the sound of cicadas, rustling bushes and countless other noises from somewhere out there in the darkness. In the distance, he could hear a child wailing in the camp. Carter sat cross legged on the baked red earth in the chill night air, shivering a little. A soft orange glow from the fire illuminated his tired features, aged beyond his years through too much exposure to the sun and suffering. Every evening he did this, just sat and took a minute to empty his mind of the new horrors that he had witnessed before the end of the day. He had found that it helped stave off the nightmares. God, it was cold tonight, he thought, tugging the sleeves of his shirt down. The African air must have thinned his blood. Goodness knows what Chicago in winter would feel like to him these days if he thought this was cold.

He was in Darfur again now. He'd done a stint in the slums in South Africa; that had been grim, followed by some time in Indonesia, in the poorer, non-tourist districts that were still suffering from the aftermath of the Boxing Day tsunami. He'd travelled some more then, spent a little while in Northern Queensland working with the aborigines before returning to Africa. He wasn't sure why he felt a pull to come back here, but he had, and now he was, he felt he had turned full circle.

This was where he had started his journey of self-discovery. Maybe this was where it would end as well. Maybe, some day he would find what he was looking for.

Despite the loneliness, and the never ending, fruitless battle against famine, disease and war which he had long since stopped deluding himself that his work actually had a positive effect on, he found it safer to stay out here, or in places like here. It was a kind of limbo, it was true, but at least no harm could come to him. Here there weren't enough drugs for the sick people, let alone the healthy ones like him who used them to make themselves sick. Even with death constantly snapping at his overworked, exhausted heels, it was still safer.

Tonight was different though somehow. He felt a little less jaded, more reflective. That thought that had just occurred to him was the first time Chicago had entered his mind in a very long time. He had worked hard to shut it out, and somewhere in this hot, dry, dying land, he had succeeded, until now. For years, he had so carefully prevented himself from thinking, feeling, from doing anything except methodically, mechanically, working hard, treating every malnourished child and Aids ridden mother that came his way. And it had worked, sort of.

His father still called him very occasionally, to check if he was still alive. Well, not so much alive as breathing. He hadn't been alive in the truest sense of the word for a long time. It was the only contact he still had with home. Whatever else had happened, he didn't want to know, or that was what he told himself, what he repeated like a mantra until he almost had himself persuaded it was true.

County was a distant memory that until now, he had banished from his mind, but against his will everything came tumbling back. Those snowy nights in the ambulance bay, waiting for the next trauma to roll in. The procession of fresh faced, hopeful young med students and interns that he had worked his butt off to turn into good doctors. That rush that you got when you saved a life. Here, you never saved lives; you just prolonged the wait until death. But what did any of it matter now? It was a world away, a lifetime away.

He hadn't heard from Kem for a very long time. She'd come back to Africa to carry on with her work for a while, but she had left a year later to return to look after her mother in Paris, and if she had come back, she hadn't told him. He wrote to her, emailed her a few times, but when she didn't reply, he wasn't surprised. He was sorry to have lost her, but he understood some things were too broken to ever mend, even with his ridiculous obsession for fixing things, and they had been broken from the moment he realised that the tiny butterfly heartbeats of their son had ceased.

His relationship with Kem wasn't the only thing he had failed to make right.

That night when he took Maggie to the bus station, she had been right about him and Abby. He had always been on some crazy mission to fix her, he could see that now. But it hadn't been to make her better, like everyone supposed. It wasn't as selfless as that, he thought. It had all been about using her brokenness to hide the fact that it was him who needed fixing all along. Abby's flaws were what made her perfect, and his… It was his flaws that had ruined them, not hers.

And so he had left her. The look in her eyes when he had come back to her that night still haunted him. Reproach, hurt, disappointment. He'd done that to her. So much for fixing her. He just broke her a little bit more.

Sighing, he stood up. Thinking like that wouldn't get him anywhere. He'd spent six long years out here and other far flung corners of the earth, eradicating all the hurt and pain that had built up in him and he wasn't going to lose that by letting the hypnotic magic of dancing flames pull him into memories that didn't need reliving. He owed himself more than a life in the past, a life of haunted dreams. He had more than that now, not much admittedly, but a bit more, and he was damned if he was going to lose it.

He retreated to his tent. Back at base, he had a tiny, two roomed hut that he called home, a far cry from the palatial grandeur that he had once been used to, but out here, when they were doing work in the camps, a tent was the closest to a roof over his head that he came. He didn't mind though. He lay himself down on the little mat, zipping his sleeping bag around him and pulling over the mosquito net. He briefly considered reading for a while by the light of the little head torch he had, but he decided against it. For the first time in a while, he actually missed having a proper bed. He felt like a little comfort tonight for some reason.

He drifted slowly to sleep, the night time sounds of the African bush a lullaby to him. But it wasn't those sounds that were echoing through the corridors of his dreams. It was something else entirely.

He was at County. It was a dream, he knew, but it seemed very real. The sounds, the smells. He was standing at the admit desk, and it looked like it was a busy shift, but he couldn't tell if it was County as it was now, or as it had been in his day. He looked round for faces he recognised to try to place himself, but everything was a little blurry round the edges. Then it began to come together, scenes flashing disjointedly before his eyes. One minute, he was in an eerily empty and quiet room with Abby. He saw the way she was smiling at him, and from that, he deduced it must be the time when the hospital was in shutdown during the monkey pox scare. Another, and it was earlier, much earlier, and he and Deb were busting their guts in some trauma trying to impress Benton. Next, and he was talking to someone he wasn't entirely sure he recognised. It was his old student, George Henry after the Zarictyl episode, and he was telling him that he wasn't surprised to still see him at County. Carter didn't know what to make of that. Was his subconscious trying to tell him something?

Then he heard a soft voice, long since forgotten, whisper to him, although he wasn't sure if it was in his dream, a product of old feelings that for some reason seemed to be coming to the fore tonight, or if it came from a deeper source, a different place.

'You set the tone.'

_Do I Mark? Do I really? Maybe once, not anymore. _He felt his lips curl into a wry smile in his sleep.

He woke up, abruptly, at dawn, with his heart racing and an excited buzz diffusing through his body which he knew was because of the dream, where he had been. The noise of the camp down by the river beginning to stir was filtering through into the tent.

For a moment, he looked around him, disorientated. He had been half expecting to open his eyes in the call room, lying on the dingy brown sofa that never failed to make his back ache, and Chuny or Haleh at the door, urgently relaying the details of an incoming trauma. Yet here he was in a tattered sleeping bag, this time with the back ache caused by the hard dirt floor.

Slowly, he sat up and stretched, yawning widely to greet the new day. It was just a dream. _Just a dream._ Nothing more, nothing less. It was no wonder the old place had been in his mind, with all that stupid, foolish thinking he had been doing by the fire last night.

He wasn't at County anymore. He was in Africa. There was one thing they did have in common though; there was always work to be done.

For the next three days he threw himself into work, trying to forget about the dream. For three never ending, horror filled days, he tried to forget. And he might have succeeded, like he had all the other times, had it not been for what happened next.

He was in the Land Rover at the head of the convey of three vehicles, heading back to base. He was in the passenger side, and Aimée, a French doctor who had been with Médecins Sans Frontière here for eighteen months was driving. Aimée was one of the few people out here he knew well, and counted as a friend. She was educated, witty and beautiful, with an open smile and blue eyes that sparkled no matter what she was faced with, and if he was anything approaching human, he knew he would not have rejected her numerous advances.

When, one evening a couple of months after her arrival, she had managed to lure him as far as her hut, and he still couldn't bring himself to do anything more than kiss her gently and hold her hand, she had confronted him in a fury, eyes flashing angrily and hands gesticulating in that wild, European way.

'What is it, Jean?' She always pronounced his name softly, the French way. 'We've been dancing this dance for weeks now, and still you push me away. Pourquoi, Jean? Pourquoi?'

'I'm sorry, Aimée, but I can't.' He looked up at her through the long shadows cast by the pale light of the paraffin lamp standing in the corner, and he let all the agony and pain and suffering that he had kept hiding for so long flood into his eyes.

And when she had seen his tortured soul gazing up at her, her temper had left her, and she came to kneel before him, taking his hands in hers. 'Oh, Jean. Tell me. Tell me everything.'

So he did. He told her every little detail, everything that had happened. His childhood, and later. Lucy dying. His addiction. Him and Abby. The death of his grandmother. Kem. Joshua. And as the words began to flow, so had the tears. She had held him all night. After that, she hadn't pressured him at all for more than friendship, understanding why that was as much as he could give.

They were only ten miles from the base when they were ambushed. So close. It happened from time to time out here; people needed food and meds, and being forced to give your scanty supply away with the barrel of a gun pressing at your temple was something of an occupational hazard.

This time it was different though. Whoever these people were, they seemed more desperate, more dangerous.

The car door was wrenched open and his arm was roughly grabbed. The man spoke to him in one of the native dialects which Carter wasn't too familiar with, but he understood his meaning clearly enough. He felt himself be thrown to the ground, but tried to raise himself up again to see what they were doing to Aimée.

'Aimée! Aimée, are you all right?' A steel capped boot kicked him in the stomach, pushing the breath from his body, leaving him gasping in agony.

'Jean!' He could hear the note of panic in her usually calm voice. 'I'm okay, I'm right here.'

There was a cry of pain from her then, and looking under the car, he could see her get a kick for her trouble as well. She tried to get up again, but after another kick, she stayed down. He tried to crawl over to her, but he only managed a couple of yards before he felt a foot come down hard on his back, pinning him where he was.

The attack lasted only a few minutes. There were no shots fired, and the bandits, or whoever the Hell they were, drove away in the cars, taking the drugs that they had been after.

As soon as he could, he was at her side. There were others down, other people shouting in what seemed like the far distance, but his only concern was her. Her eyes were closed. 'Aimée? Can you hear me?'

Her lids fluttered open, and for the first time, there was no trace of that characteristic sparkle in those eyes of hers, blue as the Chicago sky in springtime. 'Jean…' she whispered, a hand reaching up weakly to stroke his cheek.

'Aimée, where are you hurt?' He asked her urgently, but he knew. He knew that no amount of urgency would pay off here.

Her breaths were ragged, painful, and she could barely force the words from her lips. 'I've… I've ruptured my spleen Jean. I can feel it.' Her eyes met his, a deep look passing between them that went beyond words. 'There's nothing you can do.'

There were tears in his eyes that he tried not to let her see. 'Yes there is. Wait until we get you back to base, and…' And what, John? There's no nice sterilised operating theatre, no anaesthetic, no skilled surgeon waiting for you. What can you promise her?

'No, Jean. It's okay. Please, just hold me.'

Gently, he knelt by her, and eased her head onto his lap, her long golden curls fanning themselves out on his legs. He held her hand, squeezing it tightly.

After a little while, he could hear her trying to talk again. He bent closer to her, trying to catch what she was saying. Her voice was now so soft that it was little more than a breath of air. 'Is there any morphine Jean?'

He wished there was. Right now, he wished more than anything he could do something, anything, to ease her pain. 'No, Aimée, I'm sorry, there isn't.'

She nodded almost imperceptibly. 'D'accord.'

There was a long pause, the sun, white hot, beating down on them mercilessly. He sensed she was mustering the effort to speak again. 'Can you do me a favour, Jean?'

'Yes, of course, anything. Anything you want.'

'Go home, Jean. Go back to America. Look what happens when you run away.'

He frowned. Was she talking about him still, or her? She was very mysterious about her past. 'I'm married, Jean. I had a miscarriage, I lost a son, just like you did. And I ran, just the same as you. And now here I am, dying in this accursed country. Things weren't meant to end this way.' She looked up at him imploringly. 'Go home. I never will. Please, for me.'

'Oh Aimée. I can't. It's too late.' He told her what he had been telling himself, even though since the dream he wasn't so sure.

'Too late for me, yes, but not for you. Don't make the same mistakes as me. Please, Jean. Promise me.'

What could he do? What else could he say? 'I promise,' he whispered to her, the lump of grief in his throat choking him. Why, God? Why do you have to take her and leave me? He wanted to scream up to the heavens, but he knew it was no use. God stopped listening to him a long time ago.

He could barely see her through his tears, but he felt it as the life force slip away from her, her breathing slowed, and the last air left her lungs in a gentle sigh.

Three days later, on a plane, his eyes were still blurred with tears. He had tried to persuade himself that he was fulfilling a promise made to a dying woman, but he knew it was more than that. Aimée was right. He wished it hadn't taken something so extreme, but her death had served to lift a six year fog from his mind. It was time to stop running. Who knew how many chances you get in this life? He didn't want to waste any more.

The flight was long, but he was too scared to sleep. First, there had been that dream of County, and since Aimée died, her beautiful features were imprinted on the backs of his eyelids, haunting him whenever he closed his eyes.

_Go home_, she had told him. But where was home? That soulless mansion he had grown up in? The place in the city that he still owned, even though it was let out? He jumped in a taxi, the driver looking at him expectantly for an address.

'Just drive, please.'

'Can't just drive, gotta have a destination, man. Where are you going?'

Aimée's voice echoed in his ears. _Home._ Sighing heavily, he decided to stop fighting the inevitable. He gave the driver an address.

Standing in the ambulance bay, the first flakes of the winter beginning to fall, he stared up at the building. Was this really a good idea? Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps he was just stuck in the past. But then, it wasn't just Aimée he was here for. He hadn't forgotten Mark's softly spoken words in his dream.

There came a point when you just had to stop running. He just never would have guessed that the last six years would have led him back here.

Walking through the doors, he took in the scene before him. Frank, a little wider and a little more grouchy looking was snarling at a couple of lost looking med students while bent over his computer. A harassed mother with two young children clinging to her was giving Hell to the poor nurse stuck on triage. A comforting wave of familiarity washed over his as he witnessed the unbridled chaos.

'Hey, hey you, out the way,' a voice shouted at him. A pair of paramedics surged past him with a man on a gurney, writhing and screaming. Chuny and Haleh came running out of nowhere, followed by Ray. At first, Carter was struck by Ray's apparently unhurried air, until he noticed a slight limp.

He listened as the paramedic reeled off the history of the patient. 'Male, early twenties. Gunshot wound to the abdomen, no exit wound, it's still in there somewhere. Significant blood loss, pressure down to 90 over 50.' As they gathered around the patient, something began to kick off over at the triage desk, and the nurse there called out to Ray.

'Dr Barnett, can you come over here please. This lady would like to talk to the Chief –'

Chief what? Carter thought. Not Resident, Ray was too old for that now.

'No, I can't. How am I meant to run this bloody ER when I'm the only person with a medical degree on the floor? Where the Hell is Morris?'

He smiled. There was a certain timelessness about this place, it was true. If he'd had a dollar, or even a dime, for every time he'd heard someone yell "where the Hell is Morris?" he wouldn't just be a rich man, he'd be a millionaire.

He was pulled from his reverie when the man on the gurney went into arrest. Instinctively, he took a step forward before he stopped himself.

'Damn, he's in v-fib,' Ray cursed, still oblivious of his audience. 'Someone get on that gurney and start compressions. Get him into trauma one so we can tube him. And Frank,' he called over to the admit desk. 'Page Neela, this is definitely one for surgery if he makes it that long.'

He saw Sam appear from further down the corridor. 'Hey, Ray, your little girl in curtain two isn't looking so good. She's complaining of stiffness and pain in her neck, and her temperature's gone up to 103.'

'What do you want me to do about it Sam? I'm trying to stop a man from dying here.' Carter knew that stressed, harangued look on Ray's face too well.

'Hey Ray.' For a split second, everyone froze; those who recognised him in shock, and those who didn't clearly wondering what a complete stranger was doing here behind the scenes.

'Carter?' Ray asked, one disbelieving eyebrow raised questioningly.

'The one and only. Do you need a hand?'

Ray began to move through to trauma alongside the gurney, but he indicated that Carter should follow. 'I thought you lived in Africa or somewhere man?' he said over his shoulder.

'I did.' There was a finality about the tone of his voice, the tense he used, that he didn't realise until he heard himself say it.

'What the hell you wanna come back to this madhouse for?'

There were so many ways in which he could answer that question, so many versions of the truth, some crazier than others. Because I promised a dying friend I would. Because I think another dying friend told me in a dream I should. Because I can't move on and I'm stuck in the past. Because I'm sick to death of heat and mosquitoes. Because I have never been happier than I have been here.

'Kinda gets in your blood.'

It was a simple phrase, but it encompassed a lot, and funnily enough, Ray knew exactly what he meant.

There was a brief pause in the conversation while Ray turned his attention back to the patient, reeling off a list of tests to be carried out.

Carter waited, watching Ray's technique. He ran the trauma, calmly, confidently, and with skill. It made him proud as anything. He had forgotten the satisfaction he used to get from teaching.

'So do you want some help?'

'Oh, what the Hell, bugger protocol. Yes, with Morris AWOL we're getting slammed here, but don't you have anyplace else to be?'

'Nope.'

He didn't. Here, this hospital, that was all he had, so he might as well make the best of it. It might be an unorthodox sort of a home, but it was the only one he had ever known. Here he had been needed, valued, and had friends more like family than any of his blood relatives.

The best and worse moments of his life had been within these walls. Here he had learnt how to heal people, how to help people, and how to love people. He had unconsciously skimmed the corridors for a sign of Abby since he had been here, but he sensed she wasn't around, but it didn't matter somehow. The memories were still here. As were the not so good ones. Lucy dying, and his own brush with death. The time he came in drunk, gripped by his addiction and self destructive streak. The moment the ultrasound scanner had run over Kem's belly, showing the brutal truth on the little screen in front of them.

No wonder he'd never been able to have a successful relationship. He was married to this place, and he was only just seeing it now.

'In that case, I have what's just become a suspected meningitis in curtain two that could really use your help.'

Carter smiled. Here was somewhere he could do some good. Here he was home.


	4. Morris and Hope

Disclaimer: As before

Author's Note: I have a chapter for this about Pratt, but even though it's eighty per cent done, I have severe writers block on it, and it's simply not progressing at all, so I've swapped to this one instead. It's set shortly before the Carter and County chapter. And I know this is shorter than the other chapters of this story, but I felt there was less to tie up here. It appeared in my head very suddenly late last night, and all revision had to be suspended while I got it out!

Archie Morris stood in front of the bathroom mirror, checking his tie was straight and that he was looking smart. Today was an important day; interviews for the new Chief of Emergency Medicine were being held today.

The board had decided that this time, after the general lack of success of Moretti, they were going to recruit from within. County General was a very tight knit community, and they needed someone who people knew; no one appreciated a stranger being brought in to give them orders. There were only three attendings, himself, Ray and a woman who had started at County as an R3 a couple of years ago, Catherine Hall. She was well liked but quiet, and only shortly out of her residency, ruling her out as a candidate, leaving himself and Ray. Everyone knew Ray was a shoo-in to get it, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to give it his best shot.

Even though he had a few years of experience on Ray, they were equal in ability and Ray possessed a charisma and leadership ability that he knew he could only wish for. If he was being perfectly honest with himself, he thought it would probably be better for the department if Ray did get the job, but he was going to fight him tooth and nail.

The pay rise wouldn't go amiss. When Hope's parents had died in a car accident two years ago, she had made the decision to use her inheritance as a financial prop while she gave up work at County. She now did full time voluntary work with the church, mainly working as a medic at the First Mission Baptist Church, and a couple of other clinics in the poorer parts of town. So far, they had done well enough on this, but now there was a baby on the way, imminently at that, Morris thought that a bit more financial security would be useful. Having said that, Neela was also pregnant and no doubt Ray was thinking along the same lines.

He looked at the reflection staring back at him. Not so bad, he thought. In fact, not bad at all. Hope came in the bathroom and stood beside him, smiling at him in the mirror.

'Good luck sweetie. Do your best, but it doesn't matter you know. I'll still love you,' she added with a cheeky grin.

'I just want to be able to afford to give you and,' he put a gentle hand on her enormous, thirty nine week sized stomach, 'the baby everything you want.'

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, still meeting his eyes in the mirror. 'We've got everything we want Archie. We've got you. Money doesn't matter.' He had to agree with her. Since he'd been with Hope, and it was approaching five years now, three since they had been married, he no longer felt that burning desire for more, bigger, better. Who needed a flash car when you had a beautiful, amazing wife who was about to give you a child?

'I know it doesn't,' he agreed. 'And if I get the job, it means Ray doesn't, and I'm not sure if that's for the best for the department. He'd be a better Chief.'

'Oh no,' she said loyally, 'definitely not.' Then he caught her eye and raised an eyebrow. He knew she was only being supportive.

'Okay,' she gave in, 'perhaps. But I like it better that way. I don't want to share you with anyone. I wouldn't change you for the world.'

He checked his watch. 'I had better get going. I don't want to be late. My interview is at ten, and I wanted to call into the ER first, see that everything's going smoothly, garner a bit of last minute support, you know.'

Hope smiled at her husband fondly. He had already explained his plans, or strategy, as he referred to it, dozens of times to her, and already several this morning. She didn't mind in the slightest though; she would always support him in everything he wanted to do, and she was so proud of him to even be in the running for this job.

'Do I look okay?' he asked doubtfully, fiddling with his tie again.

She grasped his shoulders and turned him to face her, her massive bump preventing them from being as close as they would have liked to be. 'Archie. Stop fussing. You look smart, professional, and,' her voice dipped seductively, 'gorgeous.'

He smiled at her encouragement, and leaned forward over the bump to kiss her. 'Thank you my love. And you know what to do if anything happens.' They had discussed baby emergency plans a thousand times.

'Yes, of course. Now go, good luck.'

When he got to the hospital, he stopped by the ER as he had said he would. He greeted Frank cheerfully. 'Good morning Frank, how are you?'

'Not as happy as you,' he grumbled.

He spotted Ray, looking very smart in a dark suit and tie, in his wheelchair, trying to go through the box of charts that were on top on the admit desk. He couldn't see what he was doing and was on the verge of pulling the whole box down on top of himself when Morris jumped towards him and grabbed it before it fell.

'Which one are you after?' he asked, his face impassive. He knew how Ray hated having to be helped.

'Roberts, Violet. Female, sixty eight, infected leg ulcer.'

Morris flicked quickly through the charts and passed him the one in question. Ray thanked him quietly. 'No worries man. How did the interview go?' Ray's had been at nine.

'Well; I think,' he replied, pulling a face. 'I don't know really. It all passed in a bit of a blur, I didn't realise how nervous I was before I was outside the door, about to go in. I'm still feeling sick actually.'

Morris laughed. He knew exactly how he felt, except the nausea had hit him already. 'What's with the chair, thought you'd go for the sympathy vote?' He asked the question lightly, fairly sure that Ray wouldn't mind the enquiry.

And sure enough, he didn't. A slightly embarrassed smile passed across his face. 'Umm, no, not exactly. Nothing to do with the interview in fact.'

Morris' forehead furrowed in confusion, sensing a mystery. 'Then why? You never use it at work.'

'Well,' Ray began bashfully, 'Neela and I sort of broke one of my prosthetics last night.'

'How the Hell did you manage that?'

Ray gave him a "do you really have to ask" look, and Morris turned away in feigned disgust. 'God, what are you, animals? My question of how the Hell did you manage it still stands, but I don't think I want to know the answer anymore.'

'Good,' Ray grinned. 'Because I'm not telling you. How's Hope doing? Only a week to go, man. How are you doing, more to the point?'

'She's doing great. I'm not so sure about me. This interview couldn't happen at a worse time, she looks like she's going to burst, and I'm convinced this baby is going to be early. I have to turn my pager off in the interview, but I've told her that if something happens, she's to page you rather than call the ER. I hope you don't mind. I thought if it came direct to you, I could rely on you to get someone up to me as quickly as possible. I don't care if you have to interrupt the interview, just let me know right away.'

'Of course,' Ray said. 'No problem at all. You had better get yourself upstairs. Good luck.'

Morris was standing outside the door of the interview room. Nauseous didn't even begin to cover what he was feeling. He swore that if he and Hope were to have another, he would be a whole lot more sympathetic to morning sickness the next time round. He knocked on the door, his hand shaking.

A voice called out from inside. It sounded like Dubenko. 'Come in Doctor Morris.'

He took a deep breath and opened the door.

Downstairs, Ray was examining Mrs Roberts' infected leg ulcer. It looked like the infection was only of tissue; it hadn't reached the bone, but it smelt vile and as soon as he was sure that there was no real problem, he was quick to pass it to Chuny.

He peeled his gloves off. 'Mrs Roberts, I've had a look at your leg; your ulcer has become quite badly infected, but it hasn't got as deep as the bone, so Chuny here is going to clean it up for you, and put a dressing on it. I'll prescribe you some antibiotics and painkillers, and we'll see you back here in a week.' He looked to Chuny. 'Take a look at it when you've got it cleaned up. If you think it's not quite right, come and get me. I'm a bit worried that there's some dead flesh there that might need removing. I can't be sure with all the pus and fluid around it.'

'No problem.'

Ray was making his way back to the admit desk to find someone to pass on his remaining patients to. He had an emergency appointment upstairs with Prosthetics in ten minutes so needed to take a break. He didn't have any complicated cases, so he collared one of the interns. 'Will, can you take over my patients please. I've only got three on the board now, Chuny's been working on all of them, she can fill you in.'

'Sure, no problem Doctor Barnett.'

Just then, Ray's pager went off. It was Hope. He dashed to the phone, dialling the number. She answered instantly. 'Ray?'

'Hope, are you okay? What's happening?'

'I've gone into labour, Ray. I thought it was Braxton Hicks at first, but the contractions are a pretty regular fifteen minutes apart now. My waters haven't broken yet, but I'm pretty sure it's started.' She sounded relatively calm for a woman having a baby, he thought.

'Right, what do you want me to do?'

'I've called a cab, it's on its way now. I should be at the hospital in about twenty minutes. Can you find Archie please and let him know what's going on?'

'Of course. Good luck Hope. If you need anything else, page me.'

He had to be at Prosthetics soon, and it would take him all of those ten minutes to get there. He looked around for someone to send to find Morris. 'Sam, Sam could you do me a favour? Hope's gone into labour, she's on her way in now, can you tell Morris please?'

'I thought he was in his interview,' she said.

'He is, but he asked to be interrupted if there was any news. She's in still in the early stages, and should be here in twenty minutes. He's up in the boardroom. Do you mind? I have to be somewhere else.'

'Okay. The boardroom, third floor, right?' She had never been up to the administrative areas of the hospital. She preferred being on the floor, with patients, not tied up in bureaucracy.

She knocked on the door, tentatively. An impatient, 'what is it?' came from within.

She opened the door, and as soon as Morris saw her, he leapt to his feet. 'What is it Sam? What's happened? Is it Hope? Has she called? Is she all right?' The words came out in one, panicked jumble.

She briefly looked over at the line of suits carrying out the interview. 'I'm sorry to interrupt, but Doctor Morris asked to be notified if his wife went into labour.' She looked back at Morris. 'She's just paged Ray, she's gone into labour. She's absolutely fine, and she'll be here soon.'

Morris looked at the interview panel imploringly. In truth, he didn't care about the job right now; the interview hadn't being going well, and Hope was far more important. Most of the faces staring back at him looked unimpressed, but Dubenko gave him a benevolent smile. 'Go on Doctor Morris. You should be with your wife now.'

'Thank you, Doctor Dubenko, thank you.' He got to the door before turning back with a wry smile. 'I didn't get the job, by the way, did I?'

Dubenko wasn't going to toy with the man. 'Sorry Doctor Morris, you didn't. We value your work here at County very much, especially your research contributions, and we hope that you'll stay with us for a very long time. But on this occasion, I'm afraid, we'll be appointing Doctor Barnett.'

'Good,' Morris said with only a trace of regret. 'He's the right man for the job.' If this pained him, he thought, what must it be doing to Dubenko? For the good of the hospital, all he had to do was accept that his friend was going to get promoted over him; Dubenko had to promote the guy that was now living the life with Neela that he had wished for himself. That must be hard to do.

He hurried to maternity, skidding to a halt at the desk there. A nurse looked up calmly; she was more than used to nervous fathers. 'Can I help you?'

'Yes, yes, I'm Doctor Morris, and my wife Hope is either here, or on her way here. Can you tell me if she's arrived yet please?'

The nurse was about to agree to his request, when Morris heard his name called from down the hall. An orderly was pushing Hope in a wheelchair towards him. He rushed to her side. 'Hope, my love, are you all right?'

'I'm fine Archie, everything's going smoothly so far. The contractions are down to twelve minutes and my waters broke in the taxi.'

She was soon settled into a private room, far calmer than her husband. Three hours later though, her composed air had completely disintegrated. She was screaming at the top of her voice and holding Morris's hand so tightly his fingers were white and he thought, if she hadn't been making so much noise, he might be able to hear his bones crack.

'I said, get me an epidural,' she shouted at no one in particular.

'I'm sorry Doctor Morris, but you're seven centimetres dilated now, it's far too late for an epidural.' The obstetrician was calm, and spoke in soothing tones.

'Then for the love of God, get this thing out of me as soon as you can,' she screamed through gritted teeth as the next contraction hit. Morris reached out to stroke her brow, trying to help, but she swatted his hand away angrily despite the fact she was grasping his other as if her life was depending on it. 'You! Don't you dare touch me! Look what you've done to me!' She emphasised her words with a particularly strong squeeze of his hand, and even though he'd been trying his hardest not to, he groaned in pain and managed to pull his hand away from her vice-like grip.

He moved away from the bed to give her a bit of space, but as soon as he stepped backwards, she was shouting at him again. 'Where do you think you're going? Get back here!' He looked in bemused confusion at the obstetrician and midwife, who had barely disguised laughter dancing in their eyes. They'd seen it all before. Then Hope reached out to him, and he was back at her side in an instant.

Another hour, and it was nearly over. 'Come on,' he encouraged. 'One more push and you're there.'

She was crying in pain, and it hurt him to see her. 'I don't think I can do it Archie. It hurts too much,' she sobbed.

'Yes you can my love. I'm right with you, one last try.'

She let out another scream of agony as the next contraction hit her, and she started pushing again as hard as she could. The thin, reedy cry of a newborn filled the room, and Hope fell back on the bed in exhaustion.

Morris just looked stunned as someone, he wasn't sure who, handed him the scissors and he cut the cord. 'Congratulations, you've got a son. Well done Mum.' A nurse wrapped the baby in a blanket and passed him to Hope, who held out her arms eagerly.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kissed her hair, tears in his eyes. 'Oh my God. Oh my God,' he whispered, too choked to speak properly. 'I'm so proud of you. We're parents, Hope. We have a son.'

She looked down at the baby, and up at him, her own eyes glistening with tears also. 'Archie, I can't believe it. Oh, I'm so happy.'

Just looking at her, he couldn't believe the feeling of love that bubbled up and overwhelmed him. There she was, this beautiful, brave creature lying there, holding their child. What had he done to deserve her? She offered the tiny bundle to him, and he took it carefully. Blue eyes stared up at him, and the job related stress of the morning was completely gone from his mind. This was what life was about.

He turned to Hope. 'Do you have any ideas about what to call him?' he asked. They had discussed names briefly, but not had the time to put too much thought to it.

However, she nodded slowly. 'I was hoping that we could name him Matthew, after my father. What do you think?'

'I think it's a lovely idea,' he replied. 'Matthew Morris.' He sat on the edge of the bed, and leaned towards her. 'I love you, and I love our son.'

'I love you too Archie.' Her words, straight from the heart, made him feel a thousand feet tall.

A little while later, when the obstetrician and midwife and assorted staff had left, there was a knock on the door. 'Come in,' Morris said softly, careful not to wake the baby, sleeping in Hope's arms.

'Can you get the door for me? It opens outwards, I can't manage the handle,' a familiar voice called out.

He leapt up and let Ray in. 'Hey, I thought I'd come and see how you guys were doing. I rang up here and heard the news.' He wheeled himself over to the bed and leaned to give Hope a congratulatory kiss on the cheek.

'Congratulations guys. Neela says she'll come and see you tomorrow before her shift starts.' He looked down at the baby. 'He's lovely, you must be so proud.'

'We are,' Hope agreed.

'Have you got a name yet?'

'Yes,' Morris said. 'We've decided to call him Matthew, after Hope's father.'

Ray smiled at his friend. He looked so happy that he was afraid he might be about to explode. He couldn't believe that in a matter of months, this was going to be him and Neela. Thank God Morris and Hope were doing it first; they might pick up a few tips.

Hope was watching them. She was tired, and this might be her opportunity to get some rest. Morris was far too excited to let her sleep. 'You two, why don't you pop down to Ike's for a drink. I'm exhausted, I need to rest for a while, and you've both got something to celebrate.' She knew her husband hadn't got the job.

Morris looked doubtful, but, reluctant as he was to leave his wife and their new little miracle even for a short time, he liked the idea of wetting the baby's head. That was what new fathers were meant to do, wasn't it? 'Are you sure? I'll stay with you if you want me to.'

'Hope, if you want to rest, I'll go,' Ray offered.

'No,' she said firmly. 'Off you go.'

They entered Ike's and slipped into a table. Normally, they would perch on the tall stools at the bar, but Ray was in the chair, and Morris knew that he was sensitive about people looking down at him. Well, he would be too if he had to crick his neck up the whole time, he reasoned.

'Jaegermeister?' Ray offered with a grin, remembering the party that Morris had tagged along to all those years ago.

Morris grimaced at the word, knowing what the other man was ribbing him about. 'Ugh, no. Never again.'

Ray had been painfully embarrassed of his sycophantic boss that night, and now, they were the closest of friends. He couldn't think of anyone else he would rather be sitting here celebrating with, except Neela of course, but she would be waiting for him at home, for a more private sort of celebration. He thought that maybe Morris deserved to be told what his friendship had meant to him. He had long since learnt the perils of leaving things unsaid.

'You know man, you saved my life that night.'

Morris took a sip of the beer they had procured, and frowned in confusion. 'What are you talking about? You weren't on the balcony, you weren't hurt, and I was too hammered to be of any use anyway.'

'Precisely,' Ray said. 'I was out on the balcony just before it fell. Someone called me inside when you were spewing so I went in to check on you. And then it happened.' He glanced up at him, before looking away. He still didn't like talking about that night, too many of his friends had died to be able to recall it with the pride he knew he should feel at the way he'd handled things. 'I was with the girl that got impaled, if I hadn't been watching you empty your stomach, it might have been me.'

Morris shook his head. 'I never knew that.'

'I know,' Ray replied quietly.

'Why tell me now?'

'I'm not sure. I guess I'm just trying to say thank you. For that, but especially for everything you've done for me since I've been back in Chicago. It's not been easy, and I'm not sure that, even with Neela, I could have done it without your friendship. So many times, I've been that far,' he paused, and indicated with his finger and thumb a hair's breadth, 'from jumping in the car and disappearing back to Baton Rouge. You always seem to turn up at just the right moment and talk me out of it. And now, I've just been promoted over your head, and you're the first to buy me a beer. Seriously, you've driven me crazy over the years, but I don't think I've had a better mate.'

Morris sat back in surprise. He knew that he was always the odd one out. Back in the day, he had been surrounded by Luka, Pratt, Ray; they had all been the cool kids at school. They hadn't been the geeky, friendless ginger guy in the corner, trying and failing to make friends through making jokes at his own expense or with overblown shows of confidence that he did not feel. And now, one of those guys was sitting here and thanking him for his friendship, and Pratt had left saying something of the same.

'Wow, Ray, I don't know what to say.'

Ray gave a little shake of his head to indicate the conversation was over. 'You don't have to say anything. I thought you deserved to know, that's all. Now, a toast.' Ray raised his glass. 'To you and Hope, and the new baby.'

Morris nodded his acknowledgement. 'To you, and the new job. And to you and Neela, and the next new baby.'

They clinked glasses, and each took a hefty draught.

'Seriously, good luck when she goes into labour. Don't let her hold your hand unless she starts yelling real bad. I'm still not sure Hope hasn't broken my fingers, you know.'

'Well, I've got five months to prepare myself for it,' he laughed. Then he became grave again. 'You're really okay about me getting this job? It's not worth it if you've got a problem with it.'

'Ray, we're good, all right? I'm sorry not to get it of course, but we both know you'd be the better leader; all the youngsters look up to you. I've submitted quite a few papers over the last couple of years, and I've actually pulled in a couple of decent research grants; if I keep that up, then I stand a pretty good chance of getting tenure. I'm thinking of applying for it next year.'

Ray clapped him on the shoulder. 'Good on you man, I hope you get it.'

'Yeah, it should give me and Hope a bit more security. I mean, we're doing fine, but it would be nice to be able to start a college fund for Matthew, that sort of thing.'

'Sounds like you've got it all planned.'

Morris smiled, and Ray saw the deep contentment in his eyes. 'I have.' His eyes flickered to the clock on the wall in the corner. 'Look, I'd better get back to Hope and Matthew.' He drained the last of his beer and set the glass down. 'Congratulations on the job, and I really mean that.'

'Thank you. Get back to your family man, give mine and Neela's love to Hope.'

'Will do,' he said over his shoulder as he left.

Morris buried his hands in his pockets, and set off back to the hospital at a fast walk. Hope was right, it didn't matter that he didn't get the job. With her and Matthew, he had all he ever wanted.


	5. Pratt and Chen

Disclaimer: As before, except the staff at Northwestern are mine, with one obvious exception.

Author's Note: Here's the next instalment, I'm not entirely happy with it, I've been fighting chronic writers block with this chapter. I like the first part well enough, but the second part feels stilted and not at all how I wanted it to be, so please be gentle in your criticism – I know it's not my best work. Beyond this, I don't really have any strong ideas for any further chapters so any suggestions would be very much appreciated, as I am enjoying writing this story immensely and I would like to continue with it. This one begins, as I expect you will work out, a few months before the first chapter. I began to write this chapter after watching the Season 11 episode Twas the Night; I thought that was a very powerful storyline.

It was one of those really raw winter days; too cold to snow and a biting gale blowing that made you understand why Chicago was called "The Windy City". Despite having lived there all his life, sometimes Greg Pratt thought he'd never get used to it. He pulled the collar of his jacket up further, trying to cut out the draughts that his scarf had failed to.

And man, did the wind whistle around here. He was walking a well worn path along a line of headstones in a cemetery, coming to a halt in front of a familiar stone. He didn't come here as often as he used to, but he still swung by from time to time, especially when he needed to think, when he felt like he could use a second opinion. He didn't bring flowers, and someone had tidied away the bottle of beer he'd left next to the headstone last time. Probably thought it was kids or something.

'Mike, my man, long time no speak hey? How are things going with you?' He sighed. 'Same as always then.' He never told anyone about these little conversations he had with his old friend. If the truth be told, he felt a bit embarrassed, but it worked for him, so whatever.

'Sorry it's been a while, you know what it's like. That hospital is taking over my life I swear… Yeah, yeah, I know. If I don't like it, do something about it.' He paused, stamping his feet against the bitter cold. 'Well, that's sort of why I'm here really. I've got some big news.'

And it was big news. He wished he had someone to share it with. Sure, he had his brother, but Chaz, a paramedic now, had never entirely forgiven him for his reaction when he came out and although they had salvaged a decent enough relationship from it, they weren't as close as he would have liked. Most of his friends from his younger days had succumbed to the culture of guns and drugs that he'd worked his ass off to escape. The long and short of it was since Gallant had died, he didn't really have a best mate.

Which was why he was here celebrating rather than in a warm bar clutching a cold beer.

'I heard on the grapevine the Chief of Emergency Medicine position was coming free over at Northwestern, and I made a few calls. They're really keen on having me. A few things have still got to check out, but basically I've got the job. Yeah, I know, Chief. And at Northwestern as well. Remember that time when we got our matches, back in the day; and I thought you were crazy to want County? Well, maybe the place got to me more than I thought, but I'm Northwestern bound at last.'

It had been a long time ago that he had stood dancing in the corridor, excited at getting his first choice residency, over at Northwestern. It was amazing how fast the years had gone by.

'There's just one thing. I'm ready to leave County, don't get me wrong; there's nothing left for me there. The guy who took over from Kovac, Moretti, I guess he's okay, not a patch on Kovac but…' He shrugged. 'And all the old guard are gone. It just ain't fun anymore. But I'm worried about Neela. She didn't handle things well, man. I know I've told you before, but she's been a mess since you died. What do you think, when she comes to see you? Yeah, I thought so. Not good, hey? She's living with Dubenko now… Yep, that's right, the surgeon. Better than that arrogant prick Gates I guess, but honestly?'

He knew what Gallant would be thinking.

'It's not moving on, what she's doing. It's probably not heading for marriage and it's definitely not heading for children. She's not happy. She doesn't smile anymore; she hasn't smiled for years. That's not what you wanted for her, is it?'

He shook his head. 'No, I didn't think so.'

It wasn't what he'd wanted for Neela either. If he had one regret from recent years, it was when he had told Ray, after Gallant died, to back off. He should have known better to interfere. He hadn't realised at the time just how strongly Ray had felt about her. If he had, he wouldn't have stood in the way.

And look at all the wrong that came of it. Ray's accident, Neela's. Even Gates' girlfriend, what was he called, Mel, Meg? She killed herself because Tony left her. If Neela had been with Ray, Gates wouldn't have chased after her, well, probably wouldn't, and… When a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan, or whatever the theory was.

The thing was, the real reason why he'd come here this afternoon, was that he'd had an idea. An idea to put things right. If he went to Northwestern, they'd be needing a new attending at County.

He floated his idea to Gallant, then imagined the sort of questions his friend would ask.

'Yes, he would make her happy. He loved her so much back then, and I can't see that having changed. I don't like to say it, but they were always meant to be. When you were here, when you weren't. They were it, man.'

They were, Pratt thought. They were it, they were meant for each other. He thought of that cold, dead look in Neela's eyes, and decided he couldn't bear to see it there anymore. It was time he did something about this.

He took a step back from the grave, shaking his head. 'Look, I'm sorry man, I gotta go. I have to do this for them. I hope you don't mind, but I can't leave them like they are.'

He hurried home, and flicked through his address book. For the first year or so, Ray hadn't returned any of his calls, but unlike everyone else, Pratt had kept trying. He didn't know what made him do it; it was out of character for him, but maybe some niggling vestige of guilt had goaded him into it, knowing that had it not been for his interference, things may never have got that far. And if he'd put Ray in a cab that night of course. He'd never be able to erase the guilt he felt for just letting him wander off. Whatever the reason, he had kept calling, and eventually it had paid off. Now they spoke every couple of months, and he knew how well Ray was doing. A lot better than Neela was.

They only ever spoke about the superficial, the present, sticking to safe subjects, but it was something.

He dialled the number and waited. 'Hello?'

'Ray, how's it going?'

'Hey Greg, good to hear from you. I'm all right thanks, just had a helluva shift. I feel like I've been hit by a truck, and believe me, I would know.'

Pratt laughed. He'd spoken to Ray enough now to be used to the new, slightly dark, twist to his humour. 'So all's going well down there then? You're happy?'

'Yep, it's great.' Ray detected a different note in his old friend's voice. 'Why do you ask?'

'Oh,' Greg tried to be blasé, 'no reason. Just thought it's been a while since I called. Reckoned it was about time we caught up.'

'No you didn't.' Ray was blunt.

'All right, I didn't. I've got some big news. I've been offered a post as Chief of Emergency Medicine over at Northwestern.' Ray was actually the first person, the first living person, he had told. He couldn't help but be excited.

'Wow, congratulations. That's amazing. Chief? Hell, you must be chuffed to bits man.'

'Yeah, I am. When I was an intern, I originally matched for my residency at Northwestern; I'm made up to get this. But that's only half the reason why I'm calling.'

Ray heard the serious tone down the phone line, and felt a flicker of fear. Neela? Was she okay? Then he felt like kicking himself. How could his mind, even now, jump so quickly to thoughts of her?

'Why, what's wrong?'

'Nothing's wrong as such. It's just, if I'm leaving County, there's going to be a position coming up for a new attending. I thought you might like to know, that's all.'

He waited for Ray's reaction, unsure of what to expect. He wouldn't blame him if he just hung up. Chicago held a lot of bad memories for him, he knew. But he suspected that it wasn't just his lack of legs that would prevent him from just walking away from this opportunity.

'An attending? At County?'

'That's what I said,' Pratt replied steadily.

'I… I don't know what to say.'

'Look, you don't have to say anything. It's just an idea. But when I hand in my notice, they're going to ask if I know of anyone to take over from me, and I want to put your name forward for it. You're a good doctor, you know County. You seem like an obvious choice.' He made his voice casual, trying to make the offer sound inviting.

'Don't you think you're overlooking something?' It was as close as either of them had come to mentioning what had happened in the past.

'That's none of my business. All I'm saying is, if you want to come back, you can. You'll never get a better opportunity than this.'

There was a long pause, but Pratt made no effort to push him. Eventually, Ray spoke. 'I'm happy here, man. I've got a good life. I'm a respected doctor, I'm not some charity case. I'm not the irresponsible, carefree rocker guy who played at medicine and was stupid enough to fall in love with someone who didn't love him back. I'm a different person. I'm an attending, I'm Dr Barnett. No-one feels sorry for me. If I was to go back to Chicago…'

'If you were to go back to Chicago, it would be the same as it is there for you. A lot of people have moved on. A few of the nurses, Morris, and... Frank's still on the desk, miserable as ever, but apart from that, honestly, no one else in the ER you'd recognise.' He specified the ER carefully. There was someone in the OR he knew very well.

He could hear from the silence that Ray wasn't going to take the bait, not unless he made him.

'Man, you gotta come back.'

'What?'

'She's in pieces. She can't live without you. If you don't come back, I can't take this job, because I can't just leave her there on her own. She's with Dubenko now man, Dubenko. The guy's a fossil. I'm telling you, you have to come back.'

'_What?'_

'I said –'

'I heard what you said,' Ray snapped, running his fingers through his hair, trying to think. He'd spent so long trying to rebuild his life, and he'd succeeded. And now, in an instant, three years of work was all lying in piles of dust and rubble on the floor. Because hearing that about her, he knew he'd never be able to sleep, eat, take his mind off her again. It was hard enough as it was.

He was quiet for so long Greg thought the line had gone dead. 'Ray?'

'I'm still here,' he replied quietly.

'Then…?'

'I don't know. Even if I was to come back, things probably wouldn't work. They didn't before; why should now be any different? She lost me my legs. Her and her bloody indecision. I love her, sure, but forgive her? And if she's with Dubenko… Well, I'm just not willing to put myself through that again. I've waited around for her, once, twice. Let's just say I'm not a great believer in third time lucky.'

'Ray, I asked you to back off once before. I shouldn't have; I've apologised for that before and I'm apologising again now. But this time, I'm asking you to do the opposite. It's been nearly three years, and I haven't said a word, but enough is enough. Come back. She needs you.'

Yet another silence stretched between them, but Pratt wasn't going to give up. After the accident, he had called and called. It had taken over a year of persistence, but in the end it had worked. And he was determined that this would too.

'When… when would you want me up there?'

'I'll be working a month's notice, but after that, as soon as.'

'I don't know if I'd be able to leave here that quickly. They've been fantastic to me, and I won't leave them in the lurch. And it could take me ages to find somewhere to live in Chicago. I need a ground floor place, disabled access, commuting distance of the hospital. That sort of thing doesn't come up very often.'

God, Pratt thought. Imagine actually having to think about those things. Of course he knew what had happened. A double below the knee amputation. In terms of a medical text book, he knew exactly what had happened, but the thought of a young, fit man like Ray having to consider disabled access as part of his daily life seemed so alien.

'They'll wait for you. I can get them to wait for as long as you need. All you have to do is say the word. Let me put your name forward. Please.'

Ray sighed. He wasn't going to win this argument. He wasn't only arguing against Greg, he was fighting his own heart as well.

'Okay.' He mumbled the word, barely audible.

'What was that?' Pratt thought he knew what he had heard, but he wasn't sure.

'I said okay. Put my name forward. For some horrific, masochistic reason, I think I actually want to come back. But I swear, if I lose any more limbs, this time I'm holding you responsible.'

It was nearly six weeks later and Pratt threw his car haphazardly into a space in the staff parking lot at Northwestern. The traffic had been horrendous and he was late on his first day, dammit.

He'd put forward Ray's name to Dubenko, who was now the Chief of Staff at County, as his replacement. At first, he wasn't entirely sure if the guy would accept the idea, but he had turned out to be more magnanimous than expected, as Pratt knew he was aware what Ray's return was likely to spell for his relationship with Neela. Ray hadn't started yet, but it was only a matter of weeks now. He didn't feel too guilty about leaving Neela, knowing that soon, hopefully, she would be all right.

He'd requested an informal meeting to get to know everyone, starting at seven, and when he breezed through the doors, he saw a collection of people waiting around the admit desk for him. It was at the end of the night shift, and the beginning of the day, so hopefully he would get to meet most of his staff in one go.

'Sorry I'm late guys,' he announced loudly, hoping they were a friendly bunch. 'Traffic was a joke. Thanks all very much for gathering here. I just wanted an opportunity to introduce myself before the shift starts. I'm Doctor Greg Pratt, and I'm your new Chief of Emergency Medicine. I've been really looking forward to taking this job, so I hope we all get on well.'

He looked around him at the sea of faces. The reception seemed welcoming enough. 'Now, if I could have the heads up on a few names please.' He turned on the charm. 'Nurses first. We all know you're the ones who do the real work in any hospital.' They introduced themselves one by one, and he tried to commit their names to memory. He ran through the interns, the residents, before coming to the attendings. Five attendings stepped forward, shook his hand.

'Well, nice to meet you all folks. Is there anyone that isn't here?'

One of the nurses piped up. 'Yep, there's three more of us, Ana, Mary and Jo. Jo's in with a patient, you'll get to meet her later, and Ana and Mary are off today.'

Pratt nodded. 'Okay, thanks. Anyone else?'

One of the attendings, Doctor Johns? Jones? Johnson? looked around. 'Where's Doctor Chen? I thought she was here today.'

The nurse who had just spoken answered his question. 'She's in curtain three with Jo. That kid that fell off his bike with the dislocated knee was premedicated and ready to go; they couldn't leave him to come over here.'

But Pratt hadn't heard a word of what was said beyond 'Doctor Chen'. It couldn't be her, it couldn't possibly be her. Chen wasn't a particularly rare name. It could be anyone. He hadn't heard from her in years; a couple of cursory phone calls after her father had died, but she had soon stopped returning his calls. No-one at County knew what had happened to her.

He didn't think about her much anymore, but in the odd, lonely moment he wished she was still around. He had been a lot younger when he had been with her, and he had fallen a lot easier back then, but at the end of the day, he had liked her, a lot.

'Doctor Pratt? Doctor Pratt, sir? Are you all right?'

He shook his head, emptying the memories. 'Sorry, yes. Right, thanks guys. Those of you who are coming off shift, go home, get some sleep. The rest of you, let's get this party rolling.' He indicated to one of the attendings. He was maybe the same age as he was, with an honest face. Greg decided he liked the look of him. 'Doctor, Johns, sorry was it?'

'Yes, Johns, that's right. But feel free to call me Peter.'

'All right man. Okay, I was wondering if you could give me the lowdown a bit on this place. Is there anyone I have to keep an eye on, things to watch out for?'

'Sure, come through to the break room, we'll have a coffee before the rush starts.'

Settled in the room, far plusher and with significantly better coffee than at County, Pratt decided he was going to like this place.

'So, what's it like here? I've always wanted to work up here, I got matched here to do my residency but I ended up staying at County.'

Doctor Johns sat back in the chair, smiling at the newcomer. 'It's a good place to work here. Everyone gets on fairly well, but I wouldn't say we spend a lot of time together out of the hospital – I've heard County's a bit different.'

'Well, it is a bit,' Pratt replied with a wry smile, 'but that's because we don't have time for lives outside the hospital.'

The other man laughed. 'As far as people to look out for, a couple of the interns think they know it all, but I guess that's normal.'

'Oh yeah, I know how to deal with arrogant interns,' Pratt said, remembering with satisfaction his fist connecting with Gates' jaw in a rainy ambulance bay.

'The nurses are a good bunch, reliable. You ask them to do something, and it will get done. Just remember to ask them nicely; they're like nurses everywhere – touchy.' Greg nodded. 'If you're used to County, you're going to think all your birthdays and Christmases have come at once here; all our equipment is a lot more high tech. We get problem patients of course, but it's a different side of town here. I think you'll find things are a bit less tough.'

'Man, I like the sound of that.'

The door opened, and a nurse poked her head around the door. 'Sorry to interrupt Doctor Pratt, Doctor Johns, but there's a trauma on its way in. Five minutes out, MVA, three injured, one critical.'

Doctor Johns stood up. 'Thanks Mandy, we're on our way out.' He swilled out his coffee cup, and took Greg's from him to do the same. 'Well, here we go. This is where the fun begins.'

'Bring it on.'

They reached the door, but the other man stopped, as if remembering something. 'Oh, Doctor Pratt, there's one other thing. Watch out for Doctor Chen; she's spitting feathers that she didn't get the Chief job. She's a good doctor, but a hard woman, and I wouldn't put it past her to make your life a living Hell for getting this job over her.'

That decided it for him. It had to be Jing-Mei.

'Thanks for the tip off man, I'll keep an eye out. Just a quick question, Doctor Chen, is that Jing-Mei Chen?'

'Yes, why, do you know her?'

'Oh, back in the day. She used to work over at County.'

'Then you'll know what it's like to be on the wrong side of her.' Oh yes, he did that. 'Hey, if you've got any tips on how to handle her, let the rest of us know.'

Pratt didn't let the other man see his private smile. He had quite a few tips actually, but not ones that he was willing to share. He hoped he might get a chance to see if they still worked.

When he reached the ambulance bay, she was standing there, arms wrapped around herself. He went over to her. She didn't look a day older than when he had last seen her, waving goodbye at the departure gate for a flight to China. 'Jing-Mei, how are you?'

'Doctor Pratt,' she acknowledged him without turning around, her voice cold.

'Wow, it's been what, five years, and that's all I get?'

Now she did turn to look at him, and her eyes were as forbidding as her tone. 'I'm sorry, what exactly did you expect? I've been busting a gut here for years and you waltz in and get _my _job.'

He put his hands up, defending himself. 'Hey, I didn't even know you were here until this morning. It's kind of difficult to keep track of your employment plans when you don't talk to me for half a decade.'

'Oh, don't pretend like you care, Pratt,' she snapped.

The arrival of two ambulances prevented them from descending into a full blown row. She made to go and join Doctor Johns who was already opening the doors of the other ambulance but he called her back over. 'Doctor Johns, are you okay over there?'

'Yep, got a handle on it.'

'Good, Doctor Chen, you're with me.' He ignored the sour look she shot him. 'Right, guys, what have we got here?'

'Male, seventy one, severe abdominal bruising and lacerations, suspected internal damage, tachycardic, BP's 95 over 55, pulse down to 90. Oh, and the guys at the scene said he's in an advanced stage of dementia. He didn't seem to know what was going on in the trip over here.'

'All right, thank you. Do we have a name at all?'

'Mr Faulkner.'

Pratt looked down at the patient. 'Okay Mr Faulkner, my name is Doctor Pratt and you're at Northwestern hospital. You've been in a car accident, but we're going to help you.' He was careful to speak slowly and clearly, articulating his words precisely, but from the blank look in the man's eyes, he was pretty sure he either couldn't hear him or didn't understand.

They started to wheel him inside. 'Can we have some more help over here please?' A pair of nurses hurried over. 'Right, let's get him into… Doctor Chen, where?'

'Trauma four is free.' She took over instantly. 'Erin,' she started to issue instructions to a hovering nurse without looking up, 'Can you see if you can find this guy's medical record, we can't start pumping drugs into him until we know what medication he's on.

'Okay Doctor Chen.'

They were in the trauma room. 'Right, let's get him across onto the gurney. On my count everyone, one, two, three.' They all heaved, and he was moved. 'Okay, can someone call the blood bank please, and let's get an IV into him and a couple of litres of warm saline to start with.'

Feeling completely superfluous, Pratt stepped back and watched her. Not once throughout the whole time it took her to stabilise the patient did she either ask or tell him to do a single thing. He refused to step from the room though. It would be letting her win.

Once Mr Faulkner was stable, he went back to the bed. 'Thank you Doctor Chen, great work as always.' He gave her a patronising look as payback, receiving an icy glare in return.

She was about to open her mouth to speak when the patient groaned. 'Mr Faulkner, Mr Faulker, can you hear me?' he said, leaning over to try to hear what the man was trying to say.

'Where am I?'

'You're at Northwestern Hospital sir.'

'Where am I?' he repeated in an uncomprehending monotone.

Pratt and Jing-Mei glanced at each other. The poor guy didn't know what was going on at all.

Chen tried. 'You're in hospital, Mr Faulkner, you've been in an accident, but you're going to be just fine.' Again, there was no sign that the words had registered, but he started clawing at the line in his arm, trying to rip it out. She tried to restrain him. 'No, no Mr Faulkner, don't do that. We need that in there to treat you.'

As she leaned over him, a flailing hand caught her on the side of her face, and immediately Pratt leapt forward to help her. He was strong enough to hold the man down, and did so. 'Erin, can you get some restraints on him please.'

'He doesn't need restraints,' Jing-Mei argued over the ensuing chaos.

As soon as Mr Faulkner had been forcibly calmed, Pratt stepped towards her. 'He didn't need restraints,' she repeated quietly, refusing to meet his eyes.

He shook his head. 'I'm sorry, but if a patient hits one of my staff, for whatever reason, then restraints are required. Did he hurt you?' He tried to see the side of her face that had copped the blow, but she turned away from him and wouldn't let him have a look.

'No, it's fine. It doesn't hurt that much.'

He was about to insist on her showing him the damage, but one of the nurses at the bedside spoke up. 'I think he's trying to say something again.'

The man, now sedated, croaked hoarsely. Jing-Mei leaned over him to hear more quickly, and the old eyes that stared up at her had a desperate, imploring look in them. 'Please…'

'Please what Mr Faulkner, what are you asking?' She knew though. She had seen that look in a pair of eyes before.

'Please,' he begged again. 'Finish. I want it to end.'

She looked at Pratt. 'He's asking for a DNR.'

He shook his head. 'He's not mentally capable of making a decision like that. We'd have to wait for a next of kin to sign the order.' He saw the look of determination in her eyes and he knew she was going to fight him over this.

'He's lucid. He knows what he's asking.' But when she looked back at the patient, he was already muttering incomprehensibly again, and there was no sign of his momentary clarity. 'Greg,' she tried softly. 'You know it's the right thing.'

'It's not the right thing unless his family agree to it.'

Then the machines started going crazy. 'Pulse is dropping, BPs down to 65 over 40.' More beeping. 'Right, he's in v-fib.' The nurse looked at Pratt and Chen, who were frozen in time, watching. 'Doctor Pratt, Doctor Chen. What are you going to do?'

'Leave him, Greg,' she said.

Pratt understood what she was asking, why she was asking it, and to an extent, he agreed with her. This guy had a poor quality of life, and shocking him back to life wasn't going to improve it one iota, but there was no DNR, and he couldn't count the ramblings of an old, scared, confused man as permission. He needed more; it wasn't his decision to make.

'Someone get the crash cart. Doctor Chen, start compressions.' He jumped into action. 'Right, charging to 300.' Jing-Mei hadn't moved. 'Doctor Chen, I said start compressions.'

'No.'

He looked at her in a way that brooked no argument. 'Do it or get out.' He was sorry to have to force her, but it was that, or the man would die. It worked; she gave him a glare that told him how disappointed she was in his decision and she stepped forward to the bed.

They worked on him quickly, and soon brought him back. Just as a nurse announced 'All right, good work guys, we have a sinus rhythm again,' someone burst through the doors.

'Doctor Pratt, we've got hold of Mr Faulkner's medical records.' There was a pause as the unknown person took in the sight of Pratt in the process of returning the paddles to the cart. 'He has a DNR on him. Signed by himself and his daughter.'

Pratt threw the paddles at the cart in frustration. He'd just forced life on some poor guy who didn't want it. That wasn't why he'd become a doctor. And worse, she'd been right. She'd begged him, or as close to begging as she ever got, and he'd ignored her, made her take a part in it. And she'd been damn well right.

He met her eyes, prepared to see a gloating expression on her face, but instead, she just looked sad, and her eyes were directed at him, but staring at a point in the middle distance, and he knew what memories were playing over in her head. He'd tried to stop her from doing the right thing then, only that time she had the right to stand up against him.

They were in front of the staff so he addressed her formally. The way the nurses were looking at them told him that the tension between them was obvious. 'Doctor Chen, we've got it here now. Thank you for your help.'

'He's my patient too Doctor Pratt. I'll stay with him for now thank you.' Her voice was curt, each syllable clipped. She knew he was cutting her a break, and she resented the implication that she needed one.

'Doctor Chen.'

'Doctor Pratt.' Their eyes met over the patient between them. She looked at him, dark eyes icy cold, but Greg knew that this must be hurting her. He'd been with her the night her father died, he'd held her as she cried.

'Jing-Mei…' he said quietly.

That was it, he'd taken a step too far, and he knew it. He looked away, feeling her eyes boring into her.

'Doctor Pratt, can I talk to you outside please?'

As soon as the door closed behind them, she let rip. 'Don't you _dare_ do that ever again. They were nurses, its not like County here; I am Doctor Chen, not Jing-Mei to them. I'm not Jing-Mei to anyone here.'

He cut her off before she got into her stride. 'This isn't about me using your name in front of nurses Jing-Mei. This is about the same as it always was. I'm trying to help, trying to make things a little easier for you. This guy reminded me of your Dad, and if it reminded me, it must remind you too. I thought taking care of him might bring back bad memories for you, so I was giving you the opportunity to go.'

'I never asked for your help. Never.' She had stopped shouting at him.

'But I wanted to help, dammit. I wanted to help you.'

They stared at each other for a long moment. Eventually, she backed down. 'Look, thank you Greg, I appreciate your concern, but I neither want nor need someone to look out for me. I've been fine up until now, and I will continue to be fine. I'm sorry about earlier, I know it's not your fault you got this job over me and I had no right to bite your head off about it. I would like to think we could be professional about this.'

'Professional?'

'Yes, is that going to be a problem?'

That was clearly all he was going to get for now, so he shook his head. 'No, that will be fine.'

The nurse, Erin, stepped out of the trauma room, looking nervous at having to interrupt them. 'Sorry, but Mr Faulkner's breathing is slowing. I think he's slipping away.'

Without looking back at him, Jing-Mei returned to the room. Pratt was about to follow her when there was a call from down the corridor. 'Doctor Pratt, we need an attending in here.' He looked at the door then back to the nurse who was calling him, torn.

'Find someone else please. I'm still tied up in here.' He pushed the door open, following her back in. She looked up at him as he re-entered the room, but some of the ice in her eyes had thawed. She had taken a position at the head of the bed, compassion written all over her face as she took the old man's hand.

'Do you think we should try to help him hold out until his daughter gets here?' he asked tentatively.

Chen shook her head. 'Apparently his daughter lives in California. She won't be here for hours.'

'Okay.' He turned to the two nurses that were in the room. 'Thank you Erin, Mandy. You had better get back out there. We'll stay with him until he goes.' One of them looked as if they wanted to question the wisdom of two attendings wasting their time sitting with a DNR when there was a floor full of traumas but it wasn't her place to say anything.

Once they had left, he stepped towards her and put a hand on her shoulder, comforting her as much as he dared. He thought he could see a tear on her cheek, but it would take a braver man than he was to brush it away. He pulled up a chair and sat beside her, taking her hand, unsure of whether or not she would let him. She did, and they stayed like that until, a little while later, the lines on the screens stopped flickering, and went flat with an echoing beep. He waited to see if she would call it, but she didn't.

'Time of death, 9:53am,' he said quietly.

He tried to send her home after that, saying they could manage without her. She was about to argue again, but he gave her a small smile, and she decided she was tired of arguing. And when he turned up, late that night, on her doorstep, with a bottle of wine, she couldn't find it within herself to argue then either.


	6. Sam and Pipe Dreams

Disclaimer: As before

Author's Note: Finally, after weeks thinking about it, I've, at last, hit some inspiration for a chapter for this about Sam. I've just watched episode 13.20, and it stems from that. So here you go, hope you enjoy, and sorry it was so long in coming. Now after this one, I really don't know who to do next, so if you have a request, please let me know, because I'd love to keep writing this. This one is set a while after the Carter chapter; not sure exactly how long though, whatever fits in best with the overall timeline, given Sam and Alex's ages, which I do mention. I'm not sure if I like this chapter or not; I kind of do, but I don't feel it really goes anywhere. 

Sam put the phone back in its cradle with a contented sigh. It was six thirty in the morning and it was the first day off she'd had since she couldn't remember when, which meant it would normally be altogether too early for phone calls. Alex was the exception though. He'd just graduated high school and he was starting at college in the fall. He'd said he wanted to major in Biology eventually, and although he hadn't told her anything specific, she had a feeling med school was a part of the long term plan if they could afford it. She'd be over the moon if it was. Obviously all those hours he'd spent when he was little trailing Luka around the hospital had had more of an effect than she thought. To think she would have managed to raise a doctor, and after everything they'd been through as well. She couldn't begin to count the nights she had lain awake, terrified for Alex's future. Things had been very hard, but they seemed a lot rosier now. 

In the meantime however, he was spending the summer in the UK, coaching in a summer soccer program for disadvantaged kids. He'd heard about it through his own soccer coach, and he had decided to have a go at it. It was a big step, but he was a pretty independent eighteen year old, and he'd said that something like that could have made a lot of difference to him, so he'd like to be a part of it. Plus, he'd added with a grin when he'd floated the idea to her back at the beginning of the spring, it was legal to drink alcohol at eighteen in the UK so he was going to be having a summer and a half. She hadn't been quite as convinced of the merits of his plan after he'd pointed that out, but she knew it was too good an opportunity for him to pass up.

She always missed him when he was away from her, but over the years that he was at school, she had gradually gotten used to it, although she wasn't sure how much she liked receiving transatlantic collect calls at ungodly hours in the morning. It was fantastic to hear his voice though. He sounded like he was having a lot of fun. She thought she might even be a little envious of him. It must be great to just be able to go to a new country, doing something you love, meet new people and all that. 

She sighed. No use in having pipe dreams though, not with having to put Alex through college and probably med school as well. She'd learnt at a _very _early age that dreams did not pay the bills. Working at County did though. She was still there, and she was happy enough. It hadn't been the easiest of rides. The first couple of years had been rough, constantly living in fear of Steve turning up and blowing a hole in their lives again. She had a lot to thank Luka for. And then after that, it didn't really get much easier; Steve's death, the fire, sending Alex away. But work, somehow, had always got her through what was happening at home. It was different after Luka moved back to Croatia though. With Luka and Ray gone, and Neela's accident, everyone became quieter, more subdued, and it wasn't such a fun place to work anymore. Sure, the nurses still had a laugh, but it wasn't the same. 

Then, thank God, Ray came back. Neela smiled again, Morris had someone to tell him when he was being too much of an idiot, and absolutely everyone could see that whatever happened to you, with determination, there was no reason in the world why you couldn't get past it. He was an inspiration to them all. 

She soon stopped herself thinking about work. It was her day off after all, and goodness knows she thought about the place enough the rest of the time. She tried for a little while to go back to sleep, but typically, she was wide awake now. Giving up, she got out of bed and had a quick shower. Once she was dressed, she looked around the apartment for something to do. She killed a bit of time by running the hoover around the place, then laughing at herself for how domesticated she had become. She had a whole day to herself in which she had absolutely nothing to do; she should be lounging in her pajamas watching daytime TV, not doing housework. 

Her eye was caught by a cupboard in the corner. The door was just about closed, but it was bulging open a bit; it was her "throw in any piece of random junk you can't find a better home for and shut the door very quickly before everything falls out" cupboard. It had fulfilled that role ever since she had moved in here, and it was probably about time she did something about it. It could be a big task, but she had a whole day, and nothing else to do. Why not? She went off to make herself a cup of tea, and put some music on to help the task along before returning to the cupboard. Then, taking a deep breath, she opened the door. 

Immediately, what seemed like the entire contents of the cupboard flooded out onto the floor around her. It was only a pretty small space, as tall as she was, but narrow, a couple of feet wide at most, and only set back about two feet into the wall. How on earth she had managed to cram so much into it was absolutely beyond her. This was going to take ages to pick through; what had made her think this was a good idea? She was half tempted to push it all back in and employ her usual method of shutting the door swiftly, but it would only exacerbate the problem. Resigning herself to a much bigger task than she had initially thought of, she began to pick through the debris. 

Many of the first things she came across belonged to Alex; a few old toys of his childhood, some old school projects and work, a worn out pair of soccer boots. She sorted through this carefully, taking out things she thought she might be shouted at for throwing away and putting the rest in the pile to be chucked. There were all sorts of other things; a box of videos, long discarded since the advent of DVDs, a hockey stick, and a fondue set amongst other things. (A fondue set? Since when had she owned a fondue set?) She paused briefly to flick through a couple of old photo albums, mainly of baby photos of Alex, and she set those aside in the pile of things to be kept. 

After some prolonged digging, she came across a box that she didn't immediately recognise. It was a brown cardboard box, well taped up, and had _Sam Taggart _written on it with black marker pen in unfamiliar, spidery handwriting. Intrigued, she tried to open it but it was fairly securely fastened, so she went to the kitchen to get a pair of scissors to attack it with. When she returned, she knelt before the box and carefully slit the tape, lifting the flaps to peer inside. 

Then she remembered. Years ago now, just after she'd first sent Alex away to school, she'd met a woman called Diana, a photographer in the end stages of ovarian cancer. They were both at a time in their lives where they were lonely and in need of a friend, and Sam had spent a lot of her time with Diana in her final days. She'd left her all her camera equipment when she died, on the condition that she used it.

Of course, she hadn't. She'd taped up the box, put it somewhere safe, and gone back to work. Now though, she extracted each item one by one; cameras, lenses, flashes, and turned each over in her hands, examining them reverently. She didn't know the slightest thing about photography, but even a complete amateur could see that even though it was a little outdated these days, it was some very good quality kit. 

She ran her fingers over the largest, most technical looking camera. Diana had taught her how to use them before she'd died, but she wasn't sure whether or not she remembered. It looked pretty complicated. 

Searching further into the box, she found an envelope full of photos. She drew them out and flicked through them, tears pricking at her eyes. A whole life had passed, and here it was, summed up in the contents of a cardboard box. The photos were utterly beautiful. There were shots from all over the world, and Sam looked at them for a long time. There were so many amazing things out there, and she suddenly felt like they were all there, just waiting for her to see them. And yet, she'd never so much as left America.

At the very bottom of the pile were the photos Diana had taken as part of her hospice project. In Sam's opinion, there was an even greater beauty in the peace alongside the suffering that she saw in every set of eyes that stared up at her. Then she stopped at one particular photo. Diana. 

_Ovarian cancer first time round… but they say the third time's a charm._

When Diana had posed for this picture, did she know that in only a few years, she would die a painful, lonely death, her only company being a nurse who was equally alone and lost? 

But at least Diana had done something with her life. She had travelled, seen things, done things. What had she, Sam, done? Admittedly, she wouldn't change a thing about her life that had led to having Alex; she wouldn't be without him for the world. But Alex was eighteen now, practically a grown man. Perhaps it was time she did something for herself for once. Perhaps she didn't have to just work hard, earn money. Perhaps she deserved for her life to be a little bit more than that. 

She gazed into the wide, dark eyes in the photograph. What do you think Diana? What do you think I should do? In the silence that followed, she knew the answer.

'Ray, Ray have you got a minute?' Sam had been trying to catch a second to talk to Ray all shift. It was busy, and they were run off their feet. 

He turned when he heard his name called. 'Sam, umm, yes, okay, I've got a minute I think, only one though. Is something the matter?' He knew Sam well enough to see the troubled look in her eyes. It was an expression he had noticed about her increasingly lately. He'd asked her about it a couple of times, but she always passed it off as missing Alex. It didn't wash with him though, so even though he was absolutely flat out, he decided he could make the time if he wanted to talk to her. That was what bosses were for, right? He led her through to the lounge and poured them both a coffee, handing hers to her. 

'Thanks.'

'No problem.' He smiled at her. 'Now, what is it Sam? And don't tell me there's nothing wrong, because I know there is.'

'Well, nothing's wrong at such.' She caught his warning glare, and elaborated. 'I feel stale Ray, I've been here for so long. Before I moved to Chicago, six months was a long time for me to stay in one place, and I've been here now, what, nine or ten years. I just… I need to get away from here.'

Ray gave her an alarmed look. 'Sam, I had no idea you felt like that. I know you've been here a while, but I thought you were happy. Please don't say you're handing in your notice.'

She hadn't been, but she could, she mused. Quit her job, go travelling for a bit, then come back, find a new position in a new city. Start afresh. It sounded quite appealing. 'I don't know,' she confessed. 'I might be.'

'Well, I'm not accepting it.'

'Ray,' she exclaimed. 'That's not very helpful.'

'Okay, if you want me to go into my official, Chief of Emergency Medicine mode, then I can do. I'm extremely proud of my team here at County, I think you're all fantastic, and it makes my job so much easier, but out of everyone, it's the team of nurses, headed by you, that underpin everything. I couldn't do my job as well as I do without you, and neither could anyone else. I would do anything in order for County not to lose you, so please, give me something to work with.'

'Ray, that's very flattering…'

He grinned widely at her, relaxing back into the sofa and crossing one leg over the other. She watched, slightly amazed, as she always was, at the ease with which he moved. 'It was meant to be.'

'You can't charm me into changing my mind you know.'

'I can try,' he replied. 'I bet I could succeed if I really put my mind on it.' His smile had a touch of smugness to it, but she knew him well enough to take his comments in the spirit they were meant. 

'Just because you feed the nurses, it doesn't mean you have us wrapped around your little finger you know,' she countered.

'It doesn't?' he asked in mock surprise, then became a little more serious. 'I mean it Sam. You are a very valued member of the team, and in order to keep you here, I'm keen to work towards some sort of compromise.'

'I appreciate that Ray. I… If I'm being rational, I probably shouldn't quit my job. I enjoy it, or at least, I always have done, and with Alex about to start college, I can't afford to do anything rash like that. But I need to do something different for a while, I need to get away. Does that sound crazy to you?'

'No,' he conceded. 'Not really. But why can't you express your mid-life crisis like a normal person and go and buy a sports car or something? It wouldn't mess with my scheduling so much.'

'Mid-life crisis; don't be so cheeky! I'm only thirty-three; I'm younger than you.'

'Only just. And you've probably got empty nest syndrome or whatever it is that you women get when your children leave home. I've got another eighteen years before my mid-life crisis is scheduled.'

She pulled a face at him, and punched him on his upper arm. 'You wait until Lily's a teenager, wearing too much make up and hanging around with boys. You'll be old before your time.'

Make up? Boys? He really didn't like the sound of that; he could almost feel the grey hairs sprouting at the thought of it. 'Please let her reach her first birthday before you start scaring the crap out of me,' he said. 'But back to you. If you want some time, maybe we can work something out.'

'You'd give me some time off?'

'Well, the suits upstairs are bound to put limits on my generosity, but I don't see why you can't have a break. How long do you want?'

'Any chance of it being open ended?' she asked hopefully, knowing what the answer was likely to be.

'I can't really see Anspaugh taking to that one,' Ray said reluctantly. 'I might be able to sell it to Dubenko, but I don't think so. They're going to say if you're so keen on going, I should let you go.'

'Well, how long do you think you could get me?'

Ray thought about it. 'Six weeks?' he offered. 

'Six weeks?' she echoed, and Ray heard the barely disguised disappointment in her voice. She'd clearly been angling for more. 'I was kind of hoping…'

He laid a sympathetic hand on her arm. 'I know you were. But I'm not sure I can wangle you more than that, I'm sorry.' She nodded, taking in his words. 'Besides,' he added, 'you've got to be back in time for September the second.'

She frowned briefly in confusion, and he gave her a reproachful look. 'I'm judging by your face I should know why September the second is significant.'

'Of course you should. It's my wedding. Neela and I want you to be there.'

Of course. As Morris was billing it, the most overdue event to have happened in the ER since Tony Gates got the sack. At least he'd had the sense not to say that one in front of Ray and Neela, although she had to admit it was one of Morris's more amusing gags. 'Any chance of you putting it off for me?' she joked.

He chuckled lightly. 'I don't think so. We put it off once when Lily was on the way. I don't think Neela's parents, or Hope for that matter, will survive the disappointment of another delay.'

'No, you're probably right in that,' she laughed with him. 'Six weeks it is. How soon can you take me off the schedules?'

'End of next week maybe, unless you can sweet talk anyone else into covering you.'

'Okay, thanks Ray, for everything.'

'No problem.' 

Sam smiled at him, and she caught a sad expression flit across his face. 'What is it?'

'You'd better come back,' he said. 'I'm going to miss you.' And it was true, he would. He and Sam had always gotten on very well, and since he'd been back, he didn't take things like friendships for granted. Baton Rouge had been a pretty lonely place compared to the life he had in Chicago.

'Are you getting soppy on me Ray Barnett?' she teased.

'Maybe a bit,' he admitted.

'How on earth could you miss me? Don't you remember the time I held a pair of paddles to your chest?' she reminded him.

He frowned, casting his mind back until the memory came to him. 'Hell, yes, I do. You're right, I'm not going to miss you in the slightest.'

Haleh appeared around the door. 'Trauma coming in guys. Bus turned over out on the freeway, multiple casualties, two criticals on their way by chopper, the rest by ambulance.'

Guess the holiday doesn't start quite yet, she thought. 

Sam sighed. At last. She had finally reached the end of her last shift. She was meant to have two more to go, but Malik owed her a favour, and she'd managed to talk Chuny into taking the other. And now she was free. Her plane ticket was booked; she was flying out tomorrow morning, and she couldn't wait. She hadn't told anyone that she hadn't booked a return yet.

Maybe she was a little overexcited, but she could have sworn the air of the ambulance bay had never smelt so sweet. She started walking away, when she heard a voice coming from the shadows.

'I hear you're off on your travels.'

She spun round. 'Carter, I didn't see you there. Yep, I am. I leave for Costa Rica at ten o'clock tomorrow.'

'Looking forward to it?' he asked with a smile. 

'Like you wouldn't believe,' she replied. She walked over to him, and took a seat on the bench beside him. 

'How long are you going to be away for?'

Sam hesitated before she answered. 'I don't know. I'm meant to be back for the wedding of the year, but I haven't booked a return ticket. At the moment, when I walk away from here tonight, all I want to do is carry on walking.' She looked sideways at him, asking for his silence. 'Don't tell Ray. If I go, I'll be the first member of staff he's lost since he's been Chief. I'm hoping that getting away from here will clear my head a bit. I just don't know what I want at the moment.'

Carter smiled at her, a small enigmatic sort of a look. 'Don't worry, your secret is safe with me.' Their eyes met, and she knew he had something more to say. 'You'll be back, you know.'

'I'm not so sure.'

'You will be. This place gets in your blood; it's very difficult to walk away from. Look around you. I came back, so did Ray. Neela left to do an internship at Michigan and lasted there less than a day. Susan Lewis came back, Doctor Chen came back _twice. _Believe me, you won't escape even if you want to.'

She laughed. He was right actually, this place did seem to exert a strange pull over people. 'All doctors,' she said dismissively. 'There's no precedent for us nurses coming back.'

'That's because you lot never leave,' he pointed out, echoing her laugh. 'Haleh and Malik were fixtures when I started here, and I was still a student when Chuny arrived. Abby never left as a nurse; she became a doctor instead.' He gave her a knowing look. 'And if my memory serves me correctly, you've left once before and came back, even if you were dragged kicking and screaming by an overly tall Croatian of our acquaintance. Trust me Sam, you'll be back.'

She conceded defeat. 'All right, perhaps you have a point.' She stood up. 'But I intend to enjoy myself in the meantime. Goodbye Carter.'

'Bye Sam. See you at the wedding.'

As she walked away, she thought for the first time, after having spoken to Carter, that she might actually return. 

It was August the twenty seventh, and Sam was sitting at the head of Darling Harbour in Sydney, looking over the marina. She'd been in Sydney for nearly a week now, and was already in love with the place. She was staying in a hotel not far from where she was sitting now, on the edge of Chinatown, and she had been having great fun exploring everything. Just like everywhere else she had been, there was so much to see and do. She'd been in Australia for about a month. Costa Rica had been her first stop, for Diana; after all, she wouldn't be doing this at all without her influence, but after that, she'd decided for some reason on Australia. 

She was glad she had. It was a magnificent country, and she'd taken photos of absolutely everything she had seen. She hadn't had anything developed yet; everything had been downloaded onto CDs for the time being, but she thought she must have thousands. 

Ayers Rock, or Uluru, she had expected to be disappointed by; it was just a rock, but it had been incredible. She'd been snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef and all the other touristy things, but she'd made the effort to get off the beaten track a bit as well. Yesterday, she had caught a train to Katoomba, up in the Blue Mountains, which although was one of the more accessible areas there, she had found it breathtakingly beautiful; the Three Sisters, a sandstone rock outcrop poking up through the trees had made for some of her best pictures yet. 

Finally, she felt like she'd seen something of the world. It hadn't been much and it had certainly given her a taste for more, but she didn't feel so… bored with everything anymore. She felt refreshed, ready to face life again. Possibly even ready to face County again. Carter had been right, now her head felt like it had been unscrambled, she was beginning to feel the pull of the place in her bones. She tried to rationalise it; it was a job she enjoyed doing, and was good at. She needed the money; there was no reason not to go back. However, she knew there was something more to it than that. It just seemed to have some sort of hold over her; she tried to imagine going into work and not seeing the countless faces she had become so used to over the years, not dashing, harangued, through the familiar corridors, but she couldn't. 

Earlier this morning, she'd made her first concession to her increasing awareness that she wanted to return to County. She'd been shopping in the Centrepoint Tower and bought cheesy cuddly koalas for The Babies. The Babies were Morris and Hope's son, Matthew, and Ray and Neela's Lily, and both had been adopted by the whole of the ER. Hope took care of both of them now Neela was back at work, but Sam could have sworn they spent more time in the hospital than at home. She'd already bought Alex a hand painted didgeridoo up in Queensland, and couldn't wait to hear him have a go on it. She'd tried, and sounded like an elephant in pain. 

She stood up, pulling her sunglasses from her head down over her eyes, shielding herself from the bright winter sunlight. She supposed she had some more shopping to do. She needed to buy Ray and Neela a wedding present. Oh, and she had better ring up the airline and see how soon she could get a flight back to America. 


	7. Lucien Dubenko

Disclaimer: As before, except Frederica Hamilton is mine.

Author's Note: I'm working on requests on this story now, so anyone that you'd like a chapter on, let me know. Special thanks to fphp on this story; this chapter is for you, sorry it's a bit short, I was a little lost with what to do with this, but I'm happy with how it has turned out. Timewise, it is set a few months before the Morris and Hope chapter. Next on the "to do" list is Weaver unless there is a request to the contrary.

Lucien Dubenko was on his way down to the Obstetrics Department. The nursing manager had just fired one of the long serving nurses there on some inexplicable pretext and all Hell had let loose. Before that, he'd been stuck in interviews all morning for a new NICU attending then had his entire lunch hour swallowed up by Doctor Moretti complaining that his staff didn't seem to have any respect for him, and the students and interns would rather ask Barnett or Morris for help than they would him. He hadn't taken the subtle suggestion of making himself more approachable or supportive well.

God, it was days like these that made him regret taking the Chief of Staff job. He'd been cozened into it by Anspaugh and had taken it on the grounds that he was the most senior of the department chiefs in the hospital and he guessed it had to be somebody. Now though, it was driving him crazy, even though since Neela had left him, it had sometimes been good to have even more work to bury himself in. What made him qualified to manage people's lives for them though? He had never been a people person; considering the matter objectively, he thought he was one of the poorest communicators he knew, he was a surgeon after all. He'd spent the vast majority of his career trying to disconnect himself from human emotions, not empathise with them.

He had been asked to Obstetrics to try to "mediate", and reading between the lines, he thought that probably meant "prevent the nurses rebelling and committing a particularly ugly murder", a task for which he knew he was poorly equipped. The lift ride seemed to take forever, and by the time he got there, he really wasn't in the mood. Whatever it was, it would only lead to more paperwork. He had half a feeling that was why Anspaugh had wanted him for this in the first place; he was incessantly methodical by nature and it translated into a positively anal approach to bureaucracy that was essential for a Chief of Staff.

He was walking along the corridor from the elevator to the nurses' station when his eye was caught by the door of Doctor Coburn's consulting room opening ahead of him. He had been about to move sideways to simply pass by whoever it was coming out, but when he saw who emerged from the door, he stopped dead in his tracks. It was Neela. Neela and Ray. Both of them had enormous smiles plastered over their faces about something, and as they were leaving an appointment with Coburn, he could guess what that was. He watched them as Ray pulled her slim frame into a deep, clinging embrace.

'Oh Ray,' he heard her say, a tiny quaver of emotion in her voice. 'I can't believe it. We're going to have a baby.'

'Neither can I. It's amazing, it's wonderful, it's… I'm so happy.' He sounded as choked as she was, and lifted her off her feet, kissing her until she wriggled away from him.

'Ray,' she squealed. 'Be careful, put me down.' He didn't obey, and she gently started to hit his shoulder the best she was able while crushed to him. 'Honestly, put me down. You can't lift me. Your legs.'

'You're not that heavy yet,' he said, and got a playful cuff around the ear for the "yet", before leaning in to kiss her again.

Since Neela had moved out, on the very night of Ray's return, he had worked hard to very carefully and deliberately anaesthetise himself against any of the feelings he had for her, but seeing this little scene _hurt. _It was far worse than having to watch Abby marry Luka; he had been thoroughly anaesthetised by whiskey that night anyway, and that had been different. His thing for Abby had been an infatuation, not real. Even though now the idea of him and Neela being together seemed crazy, he had photos and memories, and a beautiful ring in a blue velvet box to tell him it had happened. It was in the past now though, and watching them, he knew with an unequivocal certainty that it had gone beyond recall. The present vision of Ray's happiness with Neela was just in such stark contrast to the wistful feeling of what he had lost when he gave her up that he surprised himself by how much it felt like someone was driving a knife through his chest.

He didn't see much of her anymore, and it was usually a little awkward when he did. As Chief of Staff, he could easily let his administrative duties take up the majority of his time, and since her departure he allowed it to. He'd only had a handful of days of hands-on surgery recently, and not all of those with her, but he had noticed something unusual about her lately; she seemed to be glowing yet unwell at the same time. The reason behind that was now abundantly clear. Oh yes, it definitely hurt. He couldn't help but stand there, fixed to the spot, staring at what could have been. Well, not exactly what could have been – he might have the full complement of limbs but he couldn't have given her what Ray could; a family.

Finally, the elated couple broke apart and turned, hand in hand, to walk down the corridor, and when they did so, they saw him. Both froze instantly, at a loss for what to say, and glanced at each other awkwardly before looking back to him. He tried to look away but he knew it wasn't quick enough and they had caught him staring.

'Umm', Ray began stiltedly, keen to be anywhere but in that suddenly frosty corridor. This was Neela's business, not his. She had explained, once, early on, why she had turned to Dubenko and he had understood her reasons, but beyond that, he hadn't wanted to know. Whatever needed to be said now was between Neela and Dubenko, not him. He made up an excuse to withdraw, giving them some privacy. 'I had better get back downstairs. Moretti only gave me half an hour, they'll be expecting me back.'

He didn't mean to rub the other man's face in it, but after the amazing news they had just been given, there was no way he wasn't getting himself a goodbye kiss. He made it swift though, knowing there would be more later. 'I'll wait for you downstairs after your shift.' He quickly disappeared.

'Lucien, I…' Those pale eyes settled on her, and she was lost for words for a moment in the awkwardness. She offered him a brief smile and tried again; he deserved that much. 'I haven't seen you around for a while. Do you want to go and grab a drink?'

The friendly, if a little tentative, smile that she gave him made him swallow his refusal. Spending time with her, despite the circumstances, was far more enjoyable than refereeing in a nurses' war.

'Yes, all right.'

They slid into a quiet booth in the corner of the hospital cafeteria where they could hopefully reside unnoticed, him with the ubiquitous coffee and with Neela clutching a polystyrene cup of lemon tea; already eschewing caffeine he noticed. They sat in silence for a minute or two, sipping at their drinks uncomfortably. Eventually, Neela felt she had to say something, and she decided to get straight to the point. She knew him well enough to know that he would rather she just said what she had come to say than skirt around it.

'Lucien, I never thanked you for what you did for me, for me and Ray. It was the nicest, kindest thing anyone has ever done for me and I'm grateful beyond words.' He didn't say or do anything other than meet her dark eyes steadily with his blue-grey gaze, so she continued bravely. 'I don't mean to patronise you, but I know it was hard for you, so I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.'

He didn't know what to say. What _do _you say to that? In truth, giving her up cost him a little bit of himself every day, every time he saw her, but he consoled himself with the fact that he knew absolutely that he had done the right thing. She was young and beautiful, and deserved to be with someone young and beautiful, and he loved her enough to give her up and allow that. But it wasn't something he could put into words, so he didn't try. He waited to see if she would say anything else.

After another silence, she realised he wasn't going to say anything so she changed the subject. 'So, how have you been keeping?'

If he wanted small talk, she could do small talk. The reason why he had bumped into her on the OB ward stood steadfastly between them, but Neela didn't feel able to tackle that yet. She was barely used to the idea herself, fantastic though it was. She'd had no idea she was pregnant; she'd been feeling a touch nauseous and been moody for a couple of weeks and in the end it was Ray who suggested what the cause might be, and dragged her to see Doctor Coburn despite her protestations that she was fine. She couldn't believe they were actually having a baby; Ray would be the most amazing father and the thought of having his son or daughter thrilled her.

'Well enough,' he answered her question. That statement had a touch of the untrue about it actually. A few months after she left, he had had another cancer scare. A melanoma this time. It was the usual story, a mole that he had had for so long he barely even knew it was there had demanded his attention by becoming red, inflamed and weeping and he was convinced that the cancer was back and that this time he would not be so lucky. He had been scared; he didn't want to die, not yet. Being with Neela had made him feel alive for the first time in years and even though now she was gone he was even lonelier than he had been before, she had left him with a tiny nugget of hope that maybe one day he would find someone again. After an endless round of tests and biopsies, it had turned out to be benign. His oncologist had expected him to be over the moon when he announced the good news, but all he could think was "will I be as lucky next time?" and "would anyone have even noticed I was gone?" They were a depressing pair of thoughts and they had haunted him ever since.

Naturally, he didn't tell her any of that. She didn't need to know, and he doubted she really _wanted _to know. This was one of the happiest days of her life, and he wasn't going to ruin it by telling her the details of his sorry existence, so he changed the subject. Work. That was nice and safe.

'I've been working a lot of course, although I wouldn't mind getting a few more hours in surgery. I have a monumental nurses' dispute to sort out in OB that I'm not looking forward to. What about you, have you had any interesting cases lately?'

She shook her head. 'No, just the usual procession of patching up GSWs and ruptured spleens from the ER. I haven't had any real fun for weeks. I'm scheduled to assist Cardiothoracics on a heart transplant tomorrow though, I can't wait.' Her eyes were alight with that old passion for her work that always fascinated him about her.

'Good luck.'

'Thank you.' They seemed to have exhausted the subject of work all too quickly, so she tried something different. 'How is your sister doing at the moment?'

'Oh, the same as always. Good, all things considered.' He didn't elaborate, knowing that deep down she was only asking to be polite.

She cast around for a new conversation topic. She knew she didn't deserve for it to be easy, but she didn't think it would be this hard. 'Umm, are you seeing anyone at the moment?' She didn't think he would be, but she honestly couldn't think of anything else to say.

'Actually yes, I am.'

He knew his answer would surprise her, but it was in fact true. Frederica Hamilton was similar to Neela solely in the fact that she was British, and very beautiful. It was very different from what he and Neela had had, so much less… careful, and very slowly, he was feeling her draw him out of the protective shell he had enveloped himself in over the years.

She was the curator of an art gallery, in her early forties and divorced, and he had met her at a cancer support group. He'd started attending them briefly before the melanoma had been diagnosed as benign, and she was there in remission after her second bout of stomach cancer. He remembered the moment he'd first noticed her. He'd been making small talk with a mousy woman who'd cornered him by the coffee machine in the foyer outside the room where the meeting was held, and then, in the middle of a particularly dull anecdote, the nature of which he had no idea of, Frederica had breezed in, nearly six feet tall in a pair of vertiginous heels, and drawing every eye, both male and female, that was standing there.

Later, when they were sitting in a circle on uncomfortable plastic chairs, she'd introduced herself with her name, which was pretty fantastic in itself, and the stark opening statement that it was the first bout of cancer that had killed her marriage and she'd made damn sure the second one hadn't killed her. It had been her matter of fact, earthy approach that initially sparked his curiosity. It had utterly fascinated him that she could be so nonchalant about death hovering over her shoulder. At first, he had been convinced that it was all an act, but having got to know her, he realised it was an absolutely genuine attitude and not an affectation at all.

In the interval at that first meeting, she had walked right up to him and introduced herself again. 'Frederica Hamilton.' A red taloned hand was thrust out to him, and, nonplussed, he had shaken it.

'Lucien, Lucien Dubenko.'

'Do you fancy getting out of here? These things depress the Hell out of me. There's nothing worse than waiting for death, don't you agree?'

Finding himself smiling at her, he asked, 'why do you come then, if you hate it so much?'

'Excellent place for picking up men. I'm a terminal commitment phobic so cancer support groups work well for me; generally makes for a short relationship.' He'd laughed at her shocking statement, not sure what to make of her. Several hours later, tangled, spent, around her and her Egyptian cotton sheets, he knew even less what to make of her, but was certain that he'd like to find out more.

She was just as artistic as you would expect an art gallery curator to be, combining sharp designer suits with great statement pieces of jewellery, huge chunks of amber or turquoise hanging on gauzy ribbons or strips of leather rather than chains, and long beaded earrings that invariably got tangled in her wild red curls. She had a wicked sense of humour to match an infectious laugh, and was ostentatious, vivacious, and in short, everything he was not. She smoked slim Sobraine Pinks that clashed with her hair, using an ebony cigarette holder that had been her grandmother's and made her look unspeakably glamorous, very Thirties. She always drank champagne and ordered lobster, and she was unlike anyone he had ever met before.

He liked who he became when he was with her. He didn't recognise himself, but he thought that might be a good thing. They were complete opposites, and juxtapositions – she was the uninhibited Brit and he was the reserved American. He didn't feel like the quiet, detached, bookish Doctor Dubenko when they were together; she brought out a side to him he had had no idea was there.

In the almost twelve months they had loosely been together, he must have asked her a thousand times what she was doing with a miserable scientist like him, and her answer was always the same.

Your money, of course, she would say in her husky, nicotine voice. He knew that wasn't true from the sparkle in her green eyes as she said it and her independent nature; she always halved the dinner check, no matter how expensive it was, and was the type of woman that would no more sponge off a man than she would step out of the front door without her makeup on. That still didn't answer his question of what she saw in him though, and however hard he tried, he couldn't elicit a serious response from her. He still refused to believe someone so full of life would enjoy the company of a cold, dead fish like him.

However, despite her opening assertion that long term relationships were not her style, she was still there, and she was his ray of hope in an otherwise pessimistic existence. She wasn't Neela, but she was beautiful, witty and available. He had known worse reasons behind a relationship. The reasons behind his and Neela's for one. Looking back, that had been a train wreck from the outset, and it had only been his amazement that she had as much as looked twice at him that had blinded him to the inevitable outcome.

While all these thoughts were running through his mind, Neela was smiling at him widely, the smile of an ex who had long since moved on, and was simply relieved that the other party had now also found someone. He gave her a small smile of permission to enquire further, and she rested her chin on her hands and leaned towards him, interested. 'That's fantastic Lucien, who is she?'

'She's the curator of an art gallery, here in Chicago. She's called Frederica. We met nearly a year ago, and a few dinner dates have sort of slid into something more.' He didn't tell her how they'd met, what she meant to him, and he hoped she wouldn't ask. He'd never told Frederica about Neela, even though he knew she'd seen photographs of them together on his mantelpiece, so it felt wrong telling Neela too much about Frederica.

'Well, I'm really happy for you. Really happy. You're an amazing person Lucien, and no-one I know deserves to be happy more than you do.' She meant what she said. He was undeniably a little odd at times, but he had been an important figure in her life for a multitude of reasons.

'Thank you Neela. I think I am happy actually. She's umm… very different from… from you, but she's –' He paused to think of a way to actually describe Frederica. It was difficult. 'Incredible. And she does make me happy.'

The smile he gave her having said that was finally one that went all the way to his eyes, and she reached out to lay her hand over hers in a gesture that acknowledged in a way that words couldn't the old level of intimacy and friendship that had once existed between them, and they stayed like that for a long moment.

Then her pager went off and the spell was broken. 'I had better go, I'm needed down in the ER.' She stood up and stepped away from the table, before pausing. 'It was nice to talk to you again Lucien.'

'And you.' She was halfway across the canteen when he thought of something else he wanted to say to her. 'Congratulations, by the way,' he called out to her departing back.

She stopped walking and turned back to look at him. Unconsciously, her hand moved to rest on her stomach and such a look of happiness passed over her face that he thought his heart might break just looking at her. Then she mouthed a 'thank you' at him, and she was gone.

Reluctantly, he swilled down the last of his coffee, grimacing at its bitterness, and stood up. He had a nurses' dispute to magically solve, then he had to see about getting himself home early. He was going out for dinner with Frederica, somewhere that served plenty of lobster and the most expensive French champagne in the city. It was her birthday, and he didn't want to be late. The little velvet box that he had in his pocket this time was a deep crimson red that reminded him of her nails the first time they had met, and he was pretty sure this one wouldn't be going to waste.


	8. Weaver and Immortality

Disclaimer: As before

Author's Note: This chapter is for ipsilon, who guessed correctly what this chapter was going to be about. It's also primarily about Weaver. I didn't, at first, have any great desire to write a Weaver chapter, as I thought she left the show with few loose ends, but since I've been watching some of the earlier stuff, when she first started, I'm beginning to hit some more inspiration for her, so I hope I do her justice. And to the person who used their review to insult one of my reviewers, do not do it again. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all. As far as the timeframe of this one goes, it occurs shortly after the Sam chapter. I also have the next chapter planned – guess who?

Sitting on the plane, Kerry Weaver had mixed feelings about returning to Chicago. She hadn't been back once since she had moved to the glamorous, sunny city she now called home, seemingly a million miles from the cold, snowy realism of what she had once been used to.

She didn't have Henry with her. Mr and Mrs Lopez, Sandy's parents, had moved to Miami shortly after she and Henry had, saying that with Sandy gone and their grandson moved away, there was nothing left for them in Chicago, so they had followed them to Florida and bought a lovely place a few blocks from them. She'd left Henry with them for this little trip; it was bound to be an endless round of socialising and catching up with people and he'd only get bored. He didn't really have any firm memories of Chicago, so he didn't feel like he was missing out, and he loved spending time with his grandparents, they spoiled him rotten.

As the plane began to descend and she saw the city come into focus below her, she felt strangely empty, not at all what she had been expecting, like an adult returning to the family home and feeling nothing more for it than the echo of old memories. And there were so many memories.

She thought back to the early days, when she had first started at County as the hotshot Chief Resident who had been brought in over everyone's heads to sort the place out a bit. It had been hard. First, she was following in the footsteps of the great Mark Greene, and on top of that, the staff didn't exactly take to her. She knew she was a disciplinarian, hard to get along with, but she'd been asked to do a job, and she'd done it ruthlessly, pretending to never care that no-one was on her side except for Benton and Mark. And even then, Peter was usually too tied up in whatever his latest personal crisis was to get involved in hospital politics, and even Mark couldn't be absolutely relied upon for support if the conflict was with Susan, which it usually was.

And most of the time, it didn't upset her that she was disliked, but she was only human, and when she had walked into the lounge to see Doug Ross's too accurate caricature of her, being performed to the amusement of a room full of people, it had hurt. Of course it had. She'd told herself she didn't care, and most days, she believed it.

Baggage claim was busy, and she had to fight her way through the crowds to get her bag. It was a lot easier these days, since she'd had her hip done. Sometimes, she didn't know how, or why, she had struggled through life with the cane for so long. She stood by the carousel, waiting for her things, one green holdall and a suit bag. When they came by, she grabbed them and made her was to the exit, stepping out into the warm, fall air. The leaves on the trees were just on the turn, green fading to gold and the sun was hazy, tired looking. She jumped into a waiting cab, and gave the driver the address of the hotel she was staying at.

It was, entirely unintentionally, the hotel her mother, her birth mother, had stayed at all those years ago when she had come, at last, to visit her. She hadn't realised it when Abby had given her the name and number of it; it was where she, Luka and the children were staying and she'd asked Kerry to join them, but when she'd looked it up on the internet, interested to see where she would be staying, she had recognised it from the pictures. She wished things had ended differently with her mother, of course she did, but she couldn't regret her decision. If her mother couldn't accept who Sandy was to her, what she meant to her, then she couldn't become closer to someone who had no tolerance for the mainstay of her life. She hadn't spoken to her since that night, but these last few years, she had taken to sending Christmas cards. No note, no words beyond a Happy Christmas, but always with an up to date photo of herself and Henry slipped inside. She guessed she deserved that much.

As she was driven through the city, all the familiar landmarks came back to her as if she had never been away. She wound down the window, and the same sounds, the same smells, assaulted her senses now that had done when she was living here. She somehow expected them to move her more than they did. They were going through her old neighbourhood now, her old house was only two blocks from here. There, that coffee house there, served an amazing hazelnut latte that sometimes on a Sunday morning, if neither of them was working, Sandy would go out and buy, with a couple of bagels, and bring back for a quiet, lazy breakfast. And that street there, she used to walk along there every day to the El station to catch the train to work.

Work now was not the frantic, endless, thankless drudgery that County had been. The hours were good, sociable, and two days a week, she was home in time to pick Henry up from school. And even though she still, after over five years, during which time she'd even won a couple of small time awards, wasn't entirely sure she bought Doctor Kerry Weaver, TV Star, she couldn't deny that she enjoyed it.

Very occasionally, she missed the buzz, the real buzz of saving lives; nothing in the world could compare to the feeling that you got when you knew that your work, your diagnosis and quick thinking, had just saved someone's life, and even more occasionally, she had questioned the point of TV work, when she could be making more of a difference somewhere else.

But whenever that tiny feeling of guilt began to niggle at her, she told herself that she had given over years of her life to Emergency Medicine, and received no thanks for it, and she had reached a point in her life where she deserved to be able to do something for herself, for once. Sandy would be proud of her. It had always annoyed her how much time she had spent at that damn hospital. And now she was gone Kerry felt like she had broken the grip County had had over her. Too late for Sandy of course, but not for herself and Henry, and she was determined to be there to see him grow up. He was her family, all she had, and nothing in the world was going to make her miss out on that.

When she arrived at the reception desk of the hotel to check in, the girl there smiled at her, handing over her key. 'I hope you enjoy your stay here in Chicago Doctor Weaver. An Abby Kovac left a message for you, to say she's in Room 119 and she hopes you'll go and see them as soon as you're ready.'

'All right, thank you very much.'

She went to her room quickly, pausing only to drop off her bag and hang up her suit for tomorrow, and have a quick look around. It was a nice room, a typical, generic, slightly better than middle of the road, hotel room, but it was clean and comfortable. Locking the door behind her as she left, she went off in search of Room 119.

She hadn't seen Abby for a long time, and Luka for even longer, and she had to confess, she couldn't wait. In Miami, for the first time in a long time, she actually had _friends. _People that were nothing to do with work, people that she went to dinner and to the theatre and to the movies with, and she loved it. But she and Abby had known each other for a long time, seen each other at their very lowest ebbs, and there was a friendship between them that hadn't always come to the fore, but was one of those bonds that wasn't erased by distance or time.

'Kerry.' She was pulled instantly into a huge hug.

'Abby, it's so good to see you again.' She held her away, at arms length, and took in the sight of her friend. Abby looked happy, the sort of happy that made your eyes shine and your skin glow. Her hair was shorter, and blondish again. She wondered, briefly, how Abby could have had so many hairstyles over the years, and hers didn't look a bit different than it had since… since she had graduated, probably. 'You look…'

'So do you.' They hugged again, and Abby pulled her into the room. Looking around, she could see they had taken what looked like a little, two bedroom suite, with a small sitting area that they were in now, and doors off to the bedrooms and bathroom. Luka was hunkered down on the floor with the children, but got up to greet her when she came in. He went over to her, and gave her a bone crushing hug as well, lifting her off the ground a little way, just as he had done when they had said goodbye on a snowy street not too far away from here.

'Kerry, how are you?' he asked when he put her down.

She straightened her jacket a little at smiled at them both. 'I'm well, I'm very well. And what about you two? How are you, what have you been doing?' She let herself be sat down on the sofa, and after a short while, a cup of coffee was put in her hands.

'Well, you know most of our big news of course,' Abby began. They kept in touch by letter. 'Anela is the main thing.' She turned to the children, playing on the carpet. 'Anela, come here please sweetie.' The little girl toddled over to her, and Abby pulled her onto her lap. 'Kerry, meet Anela.'

She knew, from the letters, that they had adopted Anela six months ago, when she had lost her parents in a car crash and been brought into the ER where Abby worked. She was a diabetic, and had been severely traumatised by the accident, and she had been a very difficult child for the first couple of months, but they were beginning to iron out the problems now. She was an absolutely gorgeous child, big brown eyes and golden ringlets, and she was going to make an adorable flower girl tomorrow.

'Hello Anela. She's lovely – how is she? How did she handle the travelling?'

Luka answered. 'She thought it was great fun. She was fascinated by the aeroplane; Joe was too, but of course he's more used to them now.'

They sat companionably for a while, chatting and catching up on the news. She knew most of the bigger details in their lives thanks to the letters, but it was great to hear all the little details. When Abby had first written to tell her that they were going to stay in Croatia for good, even though Luka's father had now died, she had been surprised, but seeing them all now, she understood. She'd never seen either Abby or Luka, so happy, so _whole. _Joe was doing well at school and they both had good jobs, Abby in an ER and Luka in a private clinic aimed mainly at tourists. He said it wasn't exactly saving lives, but it was good money and the hours were much more suitable for the children, and one of them had to be around for Anela; she still didn't like being left with the sitter for too long.

She filled them in a little on her life as well, but in truth, there was little to say that hadn't been covered in letters. She said she might like to do a documentary on the medical service in Croatia, how it had been built up again after the war, and what there was still to be done, and Abby and Luka were enthusiastic about the idea. It would be interesting, enlightening, and would give her a chance to come and see this fabulous country of theirs.

They went to dinner early, so they could take the children with them, deciding to just eat in the hotel. Eventually, the conversation, at last, worked around to the reason they were all back in Chicago.

'Well, I must say, I was quite surprised to get an invite.' She said the words lightly, not offended. She had had the measure of Ray, and she knew that had unsettled him, and she knew both him and Neela had respected rather than liked her.

Abby laughed. 'Don't feel too special. Hope planned everything, a _lot _of people got invites. All Ray and Neela have to do is turn up, say the right words in the right places, and smile.'

'Didn't they mind someone else doing it for them?'

'Hope planned our wedding and she did a fantastic job, better than I could have done, and whatever she's got for tomorrow, it will be better than Ray and Neela have time to plan.'

'What are they doing now? The invite came completely out of the blue, I haven't heard anything of them apart from what you've told me over the years.'

'Well,' Luka sighed. 'We all thought we'd had it hard over the years, but their story is right up there with anything we've mustered up.' All three of the adults smiled in acknowledgement of their past struggles, and Kerry remembered what it was like to be around people who really knew her. None of her friends in Miami knew anything of her past, of what had made her who she was. Most of the time, that was a good thing, but she missed these moments of companionship.

Before she got too lost in her thoughts, Luka continued. 'They've both come a very, very long way, but they came out to see us a few months ago and I've never seen either of them so happy.'

'And Ray's legs?'

'Wait until you see him walk. If you didn't know, you certainly wouldn't notice.'

'No cane or crutch or anything?'

'Nothing.'

They spent the rest of the evening swapping old anecdotes of life at County, of old patients and colleagues. They took the children up to bed after dinner and Kerry joined them. Joe, for some reason, had taken a fancy to her, and she read him a bedtime story while Luka settled Anela in bed. Abby had gone to see Neela, well, been summoned by Hope, for some final wedding preparations so she and Luka, in the absence of anything better to do, opened a bottle of red wine.

'Do you remember the time you told me that if I didn't get to work, you'd tell Immigration my green card was a fake?' Luka laughed, much later.

'Yes, and I damn well meant it as well.'

'I don't believe you,' he teased. In fact, he wouldn't have put it past her.

'All right, maybe I wouldn't have. But I needed to do something to try to scare you into getting your head together back then.' She paused, and looked at him thoughtfully. 'Do you ever think about…?'

'Danjela, and the children?' he finished her sentence for her when he could see he didn't know how to.

'Yes.'

'Sometimes. When I first came to Chicago, all I ever used to do was think about them and the life I had lost when they died. I had my brother's voice echoing in my head, telling me I was a coward for running away, and my father's too sympathetic, understanding gaze as he said goodbye to me fixed in my mind. And I stayed that way for the longest time. Even when I was with Abby the first time, I was still too haunted by them to let her in properly. But now…' He shrugged, and shook his head a little, as if he didn't know how to describe his emotions. 'My happiness has been a long time coming, but I have found it in Abby and Joe, and now Anela as well. It's what Danjela would have wanted for me, and it's what I want for myself. I wouldn't want to sabotage that by living in the past.' He frowned a little at her. 'Why do you ask? I don't mind talking to you about it, but it's not the sort of question one asks idly.'

'I just… There's been no-one really for me since Sandy, no-one that's come close. I was wondering how you could leave the past behind so completely. I look at you and Abby and your children, and I see two people who have been through some terrible things, together and apart, and you haven't let it rule you, define you. Whenever I meet someone new, I can't help but compare them to Sandy, and I don't know which is worst, finding out that they don't measure up, or the worry that they might.'

'It's all right to fall in love again Kerry. It's not a crime.' His voice was gentle, encouraging.

'I know. I'm not sure I even know what falling in love is anymore. It's been so long.'

'When it happens, you'll know.' Then he gave her a wide smile, and added, 'And in the meantime, if you've forgotten, look at Ray and Neela tomorrow.'

The next day, she did exactly what Luka had told her to do. Ray and Neela were standing together up at the front of the rows of chairs, and Luka was utterly right, they were the very picture of love and happiness.

The ceremony was being held in a small park that Hope had found, and the weather was perfect for it, warm and sunny, not too hot. Just the right amount of crunchy leaves seemed to have found their way to the ground, and at the end of each row of chairs was a small bunch of flowers, all reds and oranges and yellows, tied together with big raffia bows. They had Anela as a flower girl, fitting in with the autumnal theme with a russety orange dress, and Abby, as matron of honour, was wearing a simple, full length dress in the same colour. The baby, Lily, held throughout the ceremony by Neela's mother, was wearing a little party frock, also that colour. Morris, as best man, was wearing a dark suit, smart with a white shirt and black tie, and a little corsage of the autumnal colours to match the colour theme.

Ray and Neela themselves had gone for unconventional outfits. Ray wore a simple black shirt, open necked, and Neela was in red, not a wedding dress or a sari, just a knee length cocktail dress, halternecked and flowing out from the waist, very plain, but somehow, perfect. Her hair was up in some elaborate curled structure with cream freesias, and she looked very, very beautiful. Their eyes, when they looked at each other, held something very deep that she couldn't begin to describe.

'And now, have you got your vows prepared?' the minister was asking.

Both nodded nervously, and Ray began, taking Neela's hands in his. 'Neela Rasgotra, I've been waiting for this day for longer than I want to think about, but now that it's here, I'm the happiest guy in the world. We've gone from roomies,' his eyes sparkled as he said that word, and she assumed it must mean something special to them, 'to friends to, eventually, lovers, and after today, husband and wife. You've given me the most beautiful baby girl I could ever have wished for, and you've given me my reason for living. We've been through so much, too much, together, but if I had to do it all over again to get to today, I'd do it in an instant. You are my love, my life, and I promise you that I am going to do everything I can to make sure we stay as happy as this forever.'

She smiled at him, tears in her eyes, before taking a deep breath and starting her own vows. 'Ray Barnett, you are the most beautiful, most determined, strongest person I have ever known. I've watched you as you've changed from an irresponsible rocker,' they both grinned, and there was a whoop from a guy sitting a little further forward with gelled hair sticking up at odd angles, on Ray's side of the congregation, 'to an amazing doctor. I've seen you cope with things that you never should have had to, and I am so, so proud of the person that you have become. You've loved me and taken care of me for longer than I have appreciated, and I am honoured to become your wife.' Then she said something in what Kerry assumed to be Punjabi, and turned to the congregation to translate. 'What I just said means _I love you and I give my life to you, for now and for eternity._'

The minister smiled at them benevolently. 'Right, onto the rings please.' Morris and Abby both stepped forward and handed over the rings to Ray and Neela respectively.

Ray slipped what looked to be a slim, simple band of gold onto Neela's finger. He sounded choked with emotion as he said 'I give you this ring as a mark of my love for you and my commitment to you, now and for every day from now.' Then Neela said the same and if Kerry had been closer, she would have been able to see the tears glistening on her cheeks.

There was a short silence, then the minister said, 'By the power vested in me by the State of Illinois, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Congratulations, you may kiss the bride.'

And Ray stepped forward and held Neela around the waist, her arms winding themselves around his neck, and he bent his head for a long, soft kiss that seemed to forget the time, the place, and the audience. Everyone was applauding, and they didn't break apart until there were a few catcalls from the guy who had whooped earlier.

'Go for it Doctor Neela,' and there was a wolf whistle.

They pulled away from each other, smiling and laughing. 'Can it, Brett,' Neela called out happily and the music struck up and there was a sudden round of camera flashes and it was all over.

The reception was held in a function room at one of the nicer hotels in the city. The decorations were all with the same theme as they had been in the park for the ceremony, and she thought that if Hope had indeed planned all this, then she had a very good alternative career choice besides medicine, probably more lucrative at any rate.

She ordered a gin and tonic, and cast her eyes around the room. Abby had been right, a lot of people were here. There were many faces she recognised, as well as ones she didn't, and she wondered how many people she knew were still at County, and how many of them were merely visitors, back for the big event like she was.

The nurses, as ever, were all laughing together, drinking brightly coloured cocktails. Sam, who was sporting a healthy suntan, was regaling them with a story about something, and she was brandishing a camera at everyone who walked past. It was all the same faces as she remembered, Sam, Chuny and Haleh, and the younger nurse from New Orleans who had started shortly before she'd left, what was she called again? Dawn, that was it. There was a companionship between them that suggested they were all still colleagues. Malik was not far away, talking to an irascible looking Frank.

She saw Chen chatting to Abby, and there was a contented smile on her face that Kerry didn't think she had ever seen before. She wondered what the cause of it might be, then with her sharp eyes, she saw her lay her hand on Pratt's arm, who was standing with them talking to Luka and laugh lightly. Kerry raised her eyebrows in surprise; Greg Pratt actually settling down with one woman? Jing-Mei Chen actually thawing her heart enough to let someone in? Well, wonders never cease, she guessed.

Then she felt someone appear at her elbow and she turned. 'Carter.'

'Kerry, how are you?'

'Well, and you?'

He smiled, not answering, and went on, 'Lovely wedding, don't you think?'

'One of the nicest I've been to in a long time,' she said honestly as they leaned back against the bar and watched the newlyweds. Morris was saying something over the microphone, then the band struck up the first song, and Ray led Neela out onto the dancefloor. He held her lightly, hands resting on her hips and she fitted herself into the contours of his body as if she belonged there, arms around his neck and cheek on his chest. They swayed gently to the music, eyes shut, lost in each other and the moment. 'They look blissfully happy.'

'They are,' Carter answered. 'Ray's the Chief of Emergency Medicine now, had you heard?'

She nodded. 'Yes, I had. Abby keeps me up to date with all the news. I haven't heard what you've been up to though. How is Africa these days?'

'I wouldn't know,' he said cryptically, and she looked at him questioningly. 'I don't live in Africa anymore. You're looking at John Carter, Professor of Emergency Medicine at none other than County General, Chicago.'

'County? You're back at County?'

He laughed at her surprise. 'You didn't expect that, did you?'

'What, that you were back at County? Not exactly, but then on the other hand, where else would you be? What happened, how long have you been back?'

'I came back over a year ago. Africa wasn't…' He remembered Aimée's warm body, limp in his arms. 'It was too fruitless, too futile. Here may be hard, but at least we save some of them. I just walked back in one day, and Ray offered me an attending position almost on the spot, and Management were over the moon to see me. I think they sense the gravy train is back.' They laughed together at the financial obsession of the upper echelons of the hospital that they both knew too well. 'Anyway, like I say, I'm a Professor now, and I run the ER Residency programme.'

'Congratulations. And are you happy?'

He looked down at her, and she saw that the old pain in his deep brown eyes hadn't faded. 'Happy? I'm not sure what happiness is anymore. I don't drink or take pills, I sleep at night and I don't have nightmares anymore. I love my job and I make a difference. For now, that will do, and I haven't entirely given up hope that one day I will find more.' He sighed. 'What about you Kerry, are you _happy_?'

She thought about the question before answering. 'Yes, I am. For the first time since I lost Sandy, I am actually happy. Life in Florida suits me. You wouldn't put me down as into the glamorous Miami lifestyle, would you?'

'Stranger things have happened Kerry.'

The reception rolled on into the evening, but Kerry didn't want to stay too late, as she was flying back to Miami in the morning. Before she left, she tracked down the happy couple to offer her congratulations and say goodbye. She caught them in a quiet moment, sitting in the corner watching the festivities, Lily sitting on Neela's lap.

'Ray, Neela, congratulations. It was a beautiful wedding.'

Ray sprang up and pulled her up a chair. They both gave her wide, genuine smiles. 'Thank you so much Doctor Weaver. Thank you for coming, it was nice to see you again,' Neela said. 'We've tried to make this a bit of a reunion as well as a wedding. I guess it's our way of saying thank you to everyone who has helped us in our journey here.'

'Well, I'm delighted to be here.' She saw Lily watching her and held out a hand to her, and she caught hold of her fingers with a little fist. 'She's gorgeous, how old is she now?'

'Ten months,' Ray answered. 'And an absolute terror.' He looked at his daughter with love in his eyes, and she knew that however she might behave, her father didn't mind a bit.

Out of everyone who she had seen today, she was perhaps most surprised by Ray. Neela admittedly had changed. She was softer, happier, more relaxed and confident, than she had been before, but the signs of change she had seen in Ray when she had left had now taken hold. He was calm and mature; fatherhood, and now marriage, was obviously suiting him.

They started chatting lightly about what she had been doing, her job in Miami, for a while before Lily started crying. 'Excuse me,' Neela said, standing up. 'It sounds like Little Miss here is getting tired. Mum has said she'll take her home and put her to bed when she's ready, I think I'll go and find her. Doctor Weaver, thank you again.'

When she was gone, Kerry turned to Ray. She didn't speak for a moment, but looked hard at him, and eventually, he asked, 'What?'

'Do you remember when I left, I told you you were going to be a great doctor one day?' He nodded. 'I think now you are. You've changed a lot since I once described you as the lovechild of Ozzy Osbourne.'

He smiled. 'You called me that?'

'Yes. And I think the change is all for the better.'

'Thank you Doctor Weaver. I couldn't have done it, I _wouldn't _have done it, without a lot of people, and you're one of them.'

She made to leave, and she thought of something she had said to Luka when she had left County for the last time. 'Look after my ER for me Ray.'

'I will,' he said. 'I promise.'

On the plane the following day, she found she was leaving Chicago without a single regret. She wondered why County seemed to have such a bizarre hold over people; look at Carter, he'd been there since he was a third year med student. He'd made the break after over ten years, and yet still he'd come back. She'd seen plenty of people go, and return again. She simply didn't feel it herself. Why was that, she thought? She, who had arguably put more of herself than anyone else into that ER, had no hankering to see it again, to walk through those hectic corridors as if they were home. It was gone, in the past.

And why was it that some names seemed to live there forever? Ask anyone in that ER now who Mark Greene was, and she didn't doubt everyone, down to the newest med student, would be able to tell her, especially if Carter was in charge of the Residency programme. And Carter as well, that was another name that just seemed to echo through those halls for eternity.

It wasn't that she was questioning Mark or John's right to immortality. Mark had lost his marriage to that place, and John had very nearly lost his life, they certainly deserved the recognition, but she was curious as to why they had achieved eternal notoriety, yet others, like herself and Susan Lewis had not. Both she and Susan had run that ER, had worked their asses off and put their lives into it, yet no-one remembered their names. Interns and med students were not inspired by the story of the red headed cripple who had spent ten years fighting for her staff only to have the one that perhaps she helped the most sack her in a budget cut, or the story of the acerbic resident who gave up her job to help her sister then came back and ended up as Chief of Emergency Medicine. She didn't think it was because they were women, it wasn't like that. Perhaps it was because they simply hadn't been as likeable as people like Mark and John. Both she and Susan had been prickly, in some ways a little too alike for their own good. Or maybe they just weren't as memorable.

She didn't know. But she did know that she wouldn't be returning again, and that she was really looking forward to getting home, to Henry.

It was a couple of years later that she even thought of County again. In the post one day, along with notification that her documentary about emergency medicine in Croatia had been shortlisted for yet another award, arrived an envelope containing a newspaper cutting, taken from a three day old copy of one of Chicago's daily papers. It documented the "Opening of the Kerry Weaver Center of Emergency Medicine at County General Hospital". The _Kerry Weaver _Center?

Searching in the envelope, she found a note in a barely legible script that the dark depths of her memory told her was Ray's – typical doctor's handwriting, she thought. Susan remained the only resident she had _ever _been able to fully understand the writing of. The note was short and simple.

_I thought you might like to see this. Carter got bored and started flashing the cash again, and we've got ourselves three more trauma rooms, fully equipped, as well as two private exam rooms and a six bed holding ward. There was a vote on the name by everyone who works in the ER. You won hands down. _

_Best wishes from everyone at County._

_Ray Barnett._

So this is what it feels like to be immortal then, she thought with a smile.


	9. Katey Alvaro

Disclaimer: As before. The war quote is from Plato.

Author's Note: I know a lot of you might have characters you would prefer to see a chapter on than Katey, but my personal feeling is that she gets a bit of a bad press, so I've tried to make this what I see as a fair portrayal of her. It's not exactly the same in approach as the others, but I want to put over her perspective of all that happened as well as move forward into the future. After this, my list vaguely includes Crenshaw and Jane, and Susan, but I have no inspiration for either, so it might be a while before the next update – unless anyone has some ideas to help me out? I do have one slightly out there idea which has arisen from watching the early re-runs on More4 – does anyone remember Harper Tracy? What do you think of her; worth a chapter? Chronologically, this one fits in with the other chapters as being shortly before the Dubenko chapter. And note the rating change; it's risen to T due to a bit of language and references to sex, but nothing explicit. Oh, and sorry, this chapter is _enormous. _

Sometimes she wondered if she deserved the way things had turned out. On the better days, she was more given over to forgiving herself, but most of the time, she knew she had received her just desserts.

She remembered the day she had first met Ray Barnett as clearly as if it had been yesterday. The electricity between him and Neela had been as plain as day, and if it had been up to her, she would have admired from a relatively safe distance; he was _smoking hot _after all, and left it at that.

It had been him who had come up to her, with that irresistible smile of his, in the cafeteria one afternoon, interrupting her non-enjoyment of the rather unappetizing salad she was picking at, and asked if she minded if he joined her. Of course, she didn't mind in the least. It was him who'd asked her out for a drink that night. _Of course_ she'd said yes, but you would, wouldn't you? It was only a drink after all, and she hadn't known then, about Ray and Neela, what she found out later. And it was Ray who gave her that suggestive smirk as he'd walked her back to her front door, it was him who reached for her as they stood in the little galley kitchen of her apartment while they waited for the coffee to brew. It was him who was tugging at her clothes before they even reached the bedroom.

That was, if anyone had asked her how it began, what she would have told them, and it was, in the most basic sense, true; it wasn't a word of a lie. He _had _made the first move, all the first moves, and most of the second ones and some of the third. But she couldn't claim ignorance or innocence, not really. She had seen the way he looked at Neela and deep down she had known, even then, that whatever it was between them went a lot deeper than either of them would be willing to admit. And if she'd been a little bit less selfish and a little bit more thoughtful, she would have gently stopped him when he kissed her and told him that although he might think he wanted her, they both knew who really held the key to his happiness. But she hadn't. And that was what made it her fault.

She hadn't meant to get too invested in it. It was casual, she got that and to start with, she'd been okay with it. She hadn't really been looking for a relationship, certainly nothing serious, but she couldn't stop that inexorable slide into something that she had still been unsure was a good idea. Then on Christmas Day, when he'd turned up, late, but there nonetheless, with such a smile on his face and he looked _so _pleased to see her, that it made her think that maybe, just maybe, she had a chance of chasing the ghost of his beautiful British roommate from his mind and perhaps even his heart.

That look had been so incredible it had made her forget to ask why he was late. When, the next morning, she'd found his bloody coat in a bundle in the back of his car, and he'd told her he'd been caught up delivering a baby, she'd still been too drunk on the night they had just spent together to question it too deeply. It was some weeks later, when she'd already known she was losing him, that she'd spent a couple of days, more out of interest than a formal rotation, shadowing Wendall Meade, the social worker. Thanks to a follow-up visit she had accompanied Wendall on, that was when she found out what Ray had really been doing that night. He and Gates had gone out to some deserted warehouse to help those homeless kids Neela had gotten caught up with.

And there was that name again. Neela.

But it was too late by then. She didn't give her heart easily, but once she had, to Ray, it had been too late to somehow get it back again. She didn't think anyone could blame her for that.

Then, one day in at the end of winter, just as the last snowfall of the season ceased and the first breaths of warm air began to melt the heaps of dirty grey snow that lay all over the city, he had simply stopped calling her. Just like that. It felt like a rug had been pulled out from underneath her. She knew he was in love with Neela, of course she did, but she had honestly begun to think that he was willing to leave the past behind and move on, with her. She should have known better.

After their little confrontation down in the ER when she was on her psych rotation, she had hated him, and hated herself for letting it all happen. In that, she _really _should have known better. When she'd asked him the sarcastic question, half joking, _what happened, did you start dating Neela or something?_ though, she hadn't honestly thought he had. In her hurt and confusion at his sudden withdrawal, she'd just picked the words that she'd thought, no, knew, would wound him the most. But as she said it, this look flitted over his face, that of the quintessential guilty schoolboy, and she knew she'd hit the nail on the head. And worse, she could tell he wasn't sorry; sorry for getting caught, yes, but sorry for dropping her like a stone when a chance with Neela came up? No. He would never be sorry for that.

She'd made up her mind then to just walk away. She hadn't succeeded in supplanting Neela in his affections, and she knew she should have trusted her instincts in the first place. Some people just had too deep a bond to ever break.

It would be difficult, working in the same hospital, to never see him again, but she'd completed her ER rotation now and she certainly never had to see him again other than at work. Other than the very rare occasions when they may have to discuss a patient, she didn't have to talk to him. It would be all right.

She'd managed quite well in the beginning; it hurt like Hell, but she was strong, and she had a career to throw herself into, and sometimes she found herself forgetting about him for as much as several hours at a time. When she came to the ER with her ankle, she'd asked to see anyone who wasn't Ray, and Sam had obliged. She _really _didn't want to see him.

Then the phone call came.

'Hello, is that Katey Alvaro?'

'Yes, speaking. Who is this?'

'My name is Doctor Freeman, I'm an ICU attending at Northwestern hospital. We have a patient here, a Ray Barnett…'

Her heart sunk and soared at the same time. He was horribly, horrifically, injured, but he'd asked for her, not Neela, _her. _Against her better judgement, she'd gone running. She couldn't not go. He might have treated her badly, but he was in trouble and, god help her for saying it, she was in love with him. No, there was no way she wasn't going to have dropped everything to go to his aid.

And although she felt guilty for thinking such a selfish, unforgivable thought, she couldn't help but wonder if the accident had given her a second chance. When he'd first woken up, he'd asked the people at the hospital to call _her._ She had been sure that must mean something. When his mother, already at his bedside; she had travelled up from Baton Rouge overnight, as soon as she had gotten the call, greeted her so warmly, immediately pulling her into a tearful hug, she thought Ray must have told her that they were together, so she played the role of the girlfriend, even though she wasn't sure that was what she was anymore.

She was swiftly disappointed.

By the time Ray came out of his sedation properly, it was too late to correct the mistake. His mother was gushing all over her, and she could see that Ray didn't have the energy to argue, but there was a cold, dead look in his eyes that chilled her. A little later, he told her that he'd gotten drunk at the wedding and been hit by a truck on the way home, but she could tell there was more to it than that.

'What did she do?'

'What are you talking about?' he had asked sulkily.

'It's something to do with her, I know it is. Don't lie to me Ray. What really happened?'

'She doesn't love me. I thought she did, but she doesn't. So I drank an ocean of bourbon to drown my sorrows and ended up under the wheels of a truck. Not deliberately,' he added, as he saw the shocked look on her face, thinking the worst. 'But I don't want to talk about it, okay?'

She could tell he resented her questions. It was as if, even after all this, he was still trying to protect Neela, to make excuses for her, and it made Katey furious.

It was the only time in the entire two weeks that he was stuck in hospital that he had mentioned her. A lot of the time though, his eyes went dark and he became quiet and surly, and she knew that he was thinking of her. His mother, poor, poor Jacy, who was permanently distraught at what had happened to her only child, thought his moods were all to do with the accident, but Katey knew better.

She spent a lot of time wondering why he hadn't told Neela. She wasn't complaining, naturally; in fact, she thought that if either she or Ray ever saw Neela again, it would be too soon, but he didn't think like that, so why?

She realised what the reason was after his first physical therapy session, a few days before he was due to return to Baton Rouge for rehabilitation. The session had been brutal, painful, and utterly humiliating for a proud, active, self sufficient man like Ray. Jacy hadn't been able to watch, but Katey had been determined to stick by him, and it took every ounce of her medical training to stand there without flinching. As tears of pain leaked from his tortured eyes against his will, and his face screwed up in frustration, jaw set and teeth gritted, she knew exactly why he hadn't called Neela. He simply couldn't bear for her to see him like this. It was fine for her, oh yes, he didn't care what she saw of him, but Neela? God forbid his _precious_ Neela should have to be exposed so cruelly to what she had done to him.

She had been interested, in a detached, mathematical sort of way, as to how long his willpower would hold. Would he really be able to leave the city, as he was so clearly intending to, without telling her, without looking back? Katey didn't think so, and she was right.

On the morning he was due to leave, his mother was back at the guest house she had been staying at, packing up her things, and she was sitting with Ray.

He hadn't said a word for a while, and she thought he was asleep, when suddenly, he spoke. 'Can you pass me my phone please?'

'Why?'

'Just give it to me.'

'You shouldn't use those things in here. Who do you want to call? I'll go outside and do it for you.'

'Give me the phone, then go,' he said in a quiet, steely, voice that she knew she couldn't get around with any amount of persuasion.

She reached into the drawer beside the bed, where his belongings were, and held out his cell. 'I'll give you some time, but I'm not leaving. You asked me here Ray, I'm staying until you go home.'

'Fine. Whatever you want.'

He hadn't looked at her, so she got up to go. She could only imagine how the phone call went. She sat there, biting her tongue, as Neela came to see him, and they all pretended Ray hadn't just _lost his legs _because she was too much of a fucking narcissist to stop messing with his emotions. She only gave them time alone together because she couldn't bear to watch such pain, to hear him say those terrible, terrible things, and because she knew Ray wouldn't forgive her if she didn't.

When she stood and watched as Neela kissed him goodbye – something he hadn't let her do – she knew, with unwavering certainty, that whatever the future held, for all three of them, that she would _always _be second best compared to Neela. There was so much power and emotion in the way that they looked at each other that even Katey was forced, reluctantly, to admit to herself that the love wasn't just on Ray's side. And that made her angrier still, that Neela could love him and _still _treat him like she had.

She didn't mean to say what she had as Ray was wheeled away down that too white corridor, she really hadn't, but after that patronising shit that Neela came out with, she couldn't help losing her temper. It was true of course, she did blame her, but she hadn't been planning to just blurt it out like that. She was angry and hurt and she needed to lash out at someone, and Neela had seemed like a pretty good victim at the time. She wasn't proud of her words, but she didn't think she would take them back either.

She left when he left, an awkward, painful goodbye with none of the heart wrenching emotion of his and Neela's farewell, just guilt and embarrassment on his part, and regret and loss on hers. There were no softly whispered words or longing look, and if it hadn't been for Jacy's teary gratitude, she would have felt entirely unwelcome and unwanted in the little scene.

But then, perhaps she was unwelcome and unwanted. In fact, she probably was. The sedated, slightly uncomprehending Ray who had requested her presence two weeks ago had gone, all he wanted, she could see, was his last moments with the love of his life. Why hadn't she left them to it? There was definitely something to be said for a dignified retreat, but she hadn't been able to let go. What did that make her – selfish, stupid, or just a little pathetic? A combination of all three, she thought.

Women in love did stupid things; that was her only excuse. And she did excuse herself for her behaviour. Maybe she shouldn't, but she did. Sometimes she thought that if she hadn't come between Ray and Neela in the first place, the accident would never have happened, but only in the deepest, darkest moments of self pity did she believe that. Accidents happen, and over time, she even stopped blaming Neela. You couldn't hate someone who had nearly died after all, could you?

Katey had a lot of time to think about it. For a year, she waited. She called, emailed, wrote letters, but only Jacy ever replied. There was nothing from Ray, nothing at all. Her only consolation was that she knew Neela hadn't heard anything either. She knew she shouldn't be pleased by that, but jealously was so damned tenacious, like a terrier that had got hold of an ankle and wouldn't let go. Neela was broken, body and spirit, and yet Katey still couldn't help but envy her, because she knew, however Ray was doing, wherever he was, his thoughts would still be on his ex-roommate.

Then, completely out of the blue, she got a surprise. She came home after a particularly difficult day at work; they'd lost a four year old victim of abuse – ruptured spleen – on the table, which had upset everyone who had worked on the case, to be immediately followed by Neela's first shift back in the OR (she'd been building back up to it gradually with shifts in the ICU and then the ER, all organised by Dubenko), which had been excruciating. They had thus far been entirely successful in avoiding each other since the day in Northwestern that had broken both their hearts, but the surgery threw them together in the same room for five intense hours in which even Crenshaw had been supportive and sensitive to Neela.

Katey had let herself into her apartment, throwing her bag and jacket on the floor, kicking her shoes off gratefully. She poured herself a glass of cold, crisp chardonnay and went through to the bathroom to start running a steaming hot bath – she needed one. While she waited for the tub to fill, she wandered into the lounge. She saw the answer machine flashing, its red light shining out like a beacon in the darkness. She pressed play.

'Umm…' She stilled instantly. Even with the new Southern drawl, she knew it was him. 'Hi Katey, it's me, Ray. I just… I was calling to see how you were doing really. If you want to come down to Baton Rouge anytime, then give me a call. It would be nice to see you.'

The next day at work, she'd scanned Neela's face carefully for any signs of the same relief and elation she knew showed on her own.

She found none.

A week later, she was on a plane to Baton Rouge, her heart in her mouth the whole way. She didn't tell anyone where she was going, she simply took some time she was owed, and left. She hated herself for submitting, again, so eagerly, to whatever he asked of her, which would inevitably result in another hurtful round of humiliation. But she had to admit, along with all her other, deeper, feelings, maybe even the foremost of them, was curiosity. Would he be a broken shell of his former self, heartbroken, without fight or hope, reliant on canes or crutches, or even still a wheelchair, or would he have battled through his troubles? Would she find the old Ray, who she had loved, or the darkly humoured, self flagellating Ray that she had gotten used to in those final two weeks? She pondered it relentlessly all through the flight.

She got her answer, at least to the first question, at the arrivals gate. He stood there, tall and steady, more tanned than he had been before, and waved in welcome. They greeted each other with a kiss on each cheek, friendly and platonic, yet she felt her heart jump a little at the touch of his lips and she knew she wasn't cured.

The second question was gradually answered over the course of that first evening. He'd cooked chilli for dinner, and when his mum came home from work, the three of them sat down to eat. He was still the easygoing Ray she knew, but the dark twist to his humour, slightly self mocking, had remained, although with no trace of the bitterness that had been there before. There was something more to him as well, he had a new determination and confidence about him, as if he had lived through the very worst life could throw at him, and he had found himself surviving, and then after he had survived it, he had thrived on the new challenges that were constantly thrown at him. He was using his prosthetics fantastically well, and he had told her he was working again in the ER of his local hospital; he only had a few months of residency left now, and he'd been promised an attending position when he was done.

As far as the past went, he made barely any mention of it. After dinner, Jacy had shooed them into the lounge while she did the dishes, and they had their first chance to properly talk. She had asked him, simply, 'Why now?'

'Because I'm okay now. I haven't been for a very long time – I don't want to talk about that – but I've come through it. I wanted to see you, to thank you and to apologise to you. You deserve both.'

She wasn't sure that she did.

'Thank you. It's good to see you again Ray, you're obviously doing very well; you seem to have made a good life for yourself here.' There was an unspoken question in her observation, and it was the closest either of them came to tackling any of the more difficult issues for a long time.

'I am.'

He asked no questions about life back in Chicago, no questions about the people there, and now she was here with him, she completely forgot what had happened, what he would surely want to know. She was so amazed at his progress, so happy to be back in his company, that she truly did not think of Neela once, didn't think of her lying on the operating table, flatlining as everyone watched with their hearts in their mouths, didn't think of her five long days in a coma afterwards in the ICU, didn't think of the weeks of relying on extra oxygen as her lungs slowly repaired themselves, or even of the crutch that she had probably dispensed with more recently than Ray had his.

She had been there nearly a week when, one evening when Jacy was working late; she had been glad to see that the strain that was apparent between Ray and his mother had seemed to have eased over time, and they appeared to be close, she and Ray curled up on the sofa with a few beers. Things had most definitely been on a friendship footing between them, but she was certain that there was a flicker of something else. Now for instance, they were sitting very close together, closer than _just friends _sat, and she had leaned her head against his shoulder, and after a while, she felt him look down at her and lean his head towards her. They had fallen into a companionable silence, and he was scrolling idly through the TV channels.

Then the World Poker Tour came on and his whole relaxed demeanour evaporated instantly. He changed the channel almost before the picture had come into focus and he had drawn himself away from her. His whole body tensed, his neck straightened, no longer leaning into her, and as his jaw clenched she saw his knuckles whiten around the neck of his beer bottle. Sensing something was very wrong, she chanced a look up at him, and the look in his eyes made her heart freeze in her chest. There was such a deep, internal struggle going on, as if he was fighting his very soul and it frightened her that something could have such a strong effect on him.

Not that she would have dared to, but she didn't even have to ask what had caused it. For some unknown reason, Ray connected the World Poker Tour, of all things, with Neela. She knew it was Neela; nothing else, no-one else, could do this to him, and then she suddenly remembered. She thought of Abby's pale, drawn face as she watched them work on her best friend, of Dubenko's silent determination through all those hours in theatre. She even remembered the frisson of fear that she had felt for the woman who, in another life, in a different set of circumstances, might have become her friend.

She knew Ray would want to know. His studious lack of interest was purely show, his anguished hazel eyes now told her that, but how could she tell him now? How could she explain to him that for the last week she simply hadn't even thought about it? That it hadn't occurred to her to tell him? He would be furious. She hadn't been around him long enough to know exactly how troubled he still was, how he might react to some things, but oh, she knew about this. He would react exactly how he always reacted to anything to do with Neela – absolutely, unswervingly in her favour.

But she _had _to tell him. He deserved to know. He _needed _to know.

She opened her mouth, not knowing quite what words she was going to use, but knowing she had to find some, from somewhere. 'Ray…'

He didn't speak, he just stared at the screen, still battling himself.

Then her courage failed her. To tell him would be to lose him all over again. And she just… couldn't.

As time went on, it got harder and harder to broach, as there became less and less of a valid excuse as to why she had left it so long. He asked her to stay in Baton Rouge as in their mutual loneliness they slipped from friendship to something more, and she agreed instantly. No-one in Chicago would miss her, and God knows she wouldn't miss any of them.

But if she thought it was going to make her happy, she was wrong. Every day, the guilt grew at not telling him about Neela – a week might be forgivable, but a month, two, six, was not. Night after night she would lie awake, first in the guest bedroom, and then in his, unable to sleep even with his arms around her, wondering if, how she could tell him. And always, just as she was on the verge of waking him and telling him the truth she knew he needed to hear, she would chicken out at the last moment and roll over, pretending that she truly believed that Ray didn't care about Neela anymore.

It was a lie that she could sell to herself with a level of guilt that she could manage to live with. After all, he had never mentioned her, once. Surely if he really cared about Neela, he would have asked after her, wanted to know how she was doing, wouldn't he? _Wouldn't he? _

And so hers and Ray's relationship had bowled on, founded on lies but relatively unhindered by the past. And if in his sleep, he tossed and turned, and mumbled Neela's name, well; she could forgive him that, as her own crime was much, much worse.

The sex, which, in all honesty had always been an integral part of their relationship, had taken a long time to get right, let alone back to where it had been, but eventually they had got there. The first few times, Ray had gotten so angry and frustrated with himself for not being able to be exactly how he had been before that things had never got going, or else he was embarrassed, fumbling like a schoolboy, but thanks to her gentle support and persuasion, he came to see that just because it was different to what had gone before, that didn't make it less. And when they'd worked through the awkwardness and embarrassment, they had just as much fun as they always had, with the new challenge of experimentation, finding out what worked best, what he could do and what was perhaps best not attempted. She worked hard to help him, thinking it might go some way to outweighing her past sins, but her conscience always clutched tightly at her stomach when he thanked her, when he told her she deserved so much more than him.

She always answered, in a guilty whisper, 'no, I don't, you'll do me just fine.'

If only he knew.

Then, one night out of the blue, just like things always seemed to come with him, one night just as winter was beginning to grip the city; not the freezing, merciless Chicago winter, but winter nonetheless, it all changed. He had been sleeping fitfully, as he always did, moaning Neela's name while she pretended not to hear, lying awake as she did, pretending that she wasn't keeping a heart wrenching secret from him, when he woke up suddenly. Abruptly, he sat up in bed and said her name in a way that she knew the pretending was over.

'Katey?'

'Mm? Ray?' she asked sleepily, as if she had just woken up. 'Is everything all right? What time is it?' She knew, of course, what the time was. She had been lying awake ever since they went to bed, watching the seconds, the minutes, the hours, pass. She didn't want him to know that though, proud to the end.

'I'm sorry Katey. It's,' he consulted the glowing red numbers on the alarm clock beside the bed, 'half past three. Nothing's wrong, but… we need to talk.'

Wide eyes snapped open suddenly, and she sat up, alert. Even though it was dark, there was just enough light in the room to see his expression, the look in his eyes, and she knew that this was it. This was the end, this was her reward for two years of trailing after him, allowing him to use her to forget. She loved him, and didn't begrudge him a single moment of it, but she wished with all her heart that it didn't have to be like this. She tried to put him off, delay the inevitable.

'Can it wait until morning Ray?'

She attempted to keep her voice neutral, clear of the sorrow she felt, but the sympathy that flooded into his eyes told her she had failed. 'No, I don't think it can.'

'Go on then,' she said resignedly. 'Tell me Ray.'

'I'm sorry.'

She shook her head. 'Don't be sorry.'

'I can't do this anymore. I'm lying to both of us. You deserve to be loved by someone who loves you for who you are, not who they wish you were. And I… I don't know about me yet.'

She took a deep breath. If he'd stopped lying, she had to as well. It was only right. It might have been the only right thing she had ever done where he was concerned. 'You wouldn't love me anyway, if you knew what I'd done.'

His tone was wary when he said, 'what have you done?'

'There's… there's something I haven't told you.' Her eyes slid away from his, and she tried to turn away in shame, but he grabbed her wrist, a little too hard, and pulled her back.

'What? What is it?' She could tell from his urgency that he knew it was about Neela.

'She… she had an accident. The day you left.' Her voice wobbled as she could see his anger growing. 'There was an anti-war rally that she got caught up in, and a bomb went off. The crowd panicked, there was a stampede and she got trampled. She… she made it but… only just. She had just returned to the OR when I left to move here.'

She watched as the colour slowly drained from Ray's face with her words. In the darkness, he stood out like a ghost, and she saw too many ghosts of the past flit through his eyes.

'I'm sorry for not telling you,' she added eventually, feeling compelled to fill the echoing silence.

'Thank you for telling me now,' he had said tightly. 'Can you leave now please?'

She spent three lonely cold nights, a forerunner of what was to come, in the guest room while she packed her things and found somewhere to stay. When she actually left, the end had been pretty amicable. Ray knew that the fault was not all hers. All four of them, her, him, Neela, Tony, they had all done things and said things that led to this moment. You could even throw Neela's husband into the mix. Tragedy, for all of them, had been inevitable. She had never met Michael Gallant, but from the ever active County grapevine, she thought she understood where he fitted in. And look at them all; one dead, two almost, her alone, and God knows what had happened to Gates. It was a tragedy all right.

He drove her to the airport in his specially adapted car, but didn't go in with her. He let her out in the waiting bay. 'Thank you for the lift Ray,' she said awkwardly.

'That's all right. Call me when you get to New York, when you've arrived safely.'

'Do you really want me to?' She didn't think that he could possibly mean that, not after what she did to him.

But it seemed like he did. 'Yes. We've been through too much together Katey. I'd like to know how you've been getting on, how things go for you.'

'Okay. I'll call,' she replied, although she couldn't see herself having a lot of good news to pass on. She'd already switched residency programmes once when she'd moved from Chicago to Baton Rouge, and she'd be lucky to find somewhere else that would take her, especially as surgical places were as rare as hen's teeth.

Completely at a loss what to do when Ray kicked her out, she had called every one of her few friends with whom she was still in contact. Her old college roommate, now an Occupational Therapist in New York, had offered her a couch and a friendly welcome, which Katey thought was about as good as she was going to get anywhere. It wasn't great, but it was a new start, in a new place. Perhaps she would finally be able to move on.

The first thing she'd done, before applying to every single residency programme in the city, which was her task for the following day, was to simply take a walk around Central Park, reflecting on the fact that she was twenty seven years old, jobless, homeless and absolutely, unequivocally single. _Oh, and she hated herself._

But it had turned out that, at last, her luck changed. As she'd been walking along, trying to empty her head of the grief, the guilt that was rolling around in it, a guy out jogging had suddenly collapsed right in front of her, and she'd sprung into action, doing CPR and mouth to mouth, keeping him alive until the paramedics arrived. In the absence of anything else to do, and because she was quite concerned to see if he would be okay, she had ridden along to the hospital with him.

Doctor Samuel Kingston, as the patient turned out to be, was a surgeon at a private hospital in Manhattan. They didn't have a formal residency programme, but when he woke up in the ER with her sitting next to him, he offered her a job. He'd been joking when he said it, but she explained who she was, her position, and he soon reiterated the offer seriously, and she accepted in a flash. She'd been there two years now, and was already assured of an attending position when her residency was complete.

Katey Alvaro, career girl; who'd have thought it, hey? Well, career woman, strictly speaking, she supposed. You couldn't be knocking on for thirty and still be a girl, could you?

It was on her way home from the hospital, just after she'd been informed of her confirmed place there, when her cell rang. She didn't recognise the number so answered it tentatively.

'Hello?'

'Umm…' And just like last time, so sudden, so unexpected, so _instantly _recognisable. 'Hi Katey, it's me, Ray.' She didn't know if he was intentionally using the same words as he did last time he had called her out of the blue, or if it was just coincidence. And this _was_ out of the blue. They had kept in touch, briefly, when she first moved to New York, but she hadn't heard from him since the first couple of months she had been here, and she didn't pursue it. This time, she really had been able to put him behind her, in the past, where the whole sorry episode belonged for them all.

'Hey Ray,' she answered, as casually as she was able. 'How are you doing?'

'I'm doing really well thanks.' His voice was so light, so happy when he said that that she knew. There was only one thing, one person, in the world that could make him sound that happy. 'How are you?'

'Fantastic,' she lied. 'I'm still at St Luke's, and I've got a gorgeous new apartment, a loft space, right in Manhattan.'

'Sounds lovely,' he commented, and she could tell he was trying to find the words to tell her something. She let him take his time; if anyone knew how hard it was to find words that needed to be said, however hard it was to say them, it was most definitely her.

'It is.'

'There's something I need to tell you Katey.' She waited in silence. 'Umm…' he stumbled, before biting the bullet. 'Neela and I are getting married.'

Married? _Married? _She tried to find it in her heart to be pleased for them, but she wasn't sure if they deserved a happy ending any more than she did. None of them were angels, faultless.

'Congratulations,' she choked out.

A silence fell between them. Ray didn't think there was any need to tell her the details. There was no need to tell her of how he had painstakingly picked out a ring, dragging Sam (far more given over to discretion than Hope, another candidate for ring-picking assistant) to what she moaned was every damn jewellers in Chicago, or of how he had carried the little box around with him everywhere he went for three whole weeks, waiting for the perfect moment. Katey didn't need to hear all that, and he was certain she didn't want to.

In the end, he had given up trying to orchestrate the "perfect moment". He'd heard she'd lost a patient in surgery, an Iraq veteran suffering from PTSD who they'd spent three hours on, trying to piece his arteries back together where he had slit his wrists, only to have him bleed out on the table before their eyes. He knew how it must have affected her, so he went to the place he knew she'd be.

Her form, hunched and upset by the railing, reminded her of how she had been here once before. This time though, he approached secure in the knowledge that, at last, she wouldn't push him away. They'd both done too much of that, and learnt their lessons.

'Neela?'

'You heard then.'

'I'm sorry.'

'You know it was Michael's birthday yesterday, don't you?' He hadn't, so instead of saying anything, he had walked up behind her, and took her firmly in his arms. She succumbed to his embrace without resistance, letting out a little sigh of relief at his touch.

He held her quietly for a while.

'Sorry,' she said eventually. 'I didn't mean to get like that.'

'It's okay. It's always okay.'

'I can't help wondering when all the killing, the dying, will stop. Will it ever stop?

'I don't think so Neela, not really. _Only the dead have seen the end of war_,' he quoted from some dark recess of his mind. 'It was Plato who said that, and if he thought it then, then what hope is there for the rest of us? Those of us who are left behind, or lucky enough not to get caught up in it in the first place, just have to make do with what is left.'

His words had calmed her, as if she could see that maybe it wasn't up to her to solve something that had plagued the world for millennia. 'You know I'm not making do with you, don't you? It's not just because you're the one who's left…'

She turned in his arms to look at him earnestly, and he smiled down at her. 'I know.'

'I love you Ray. I love you more than life itself, I really do. I don't know what I'd do without you.'

'Well,' he stroked her face, winding an unruly strand of hair behind her ear. 'You'll never have to find out.' He suddenly remembered the ring, still in his pocket, and realised the perfect moment had come to him.

He drew it out and opened it, the sunlight catching on the diamond in the centre, simply cut and set off beautifully by the small sapphire on either side. Blue, for her name.

'I'd get down on one knee, but we both know that's anatomically impossible for me, so I'm going to say, from up here, Neela Rasgotra, I love you, you're the one for me, and you always have been. Someone, somewhere, gave us a second chance and we've worked damn hard not to throw it away. We seem to have succeeded, so…' He looked down into her big brown eyes, tears already glinting on her lashes, knowing what was coming. 'Will you marry me?'

He brushed a tear from her cheek, and waited. He had waited so long for this, but these last few seconds seemed like the longest of all.

Finally, a smile broke threw her sobs and she nodded. 'Yes Ray,' she had whispered, barely able to talk with emotion. 'Yes, forever yes.'

Then they had both held each other as they cried, unable to believe that their moment had finally arrived.

But he told Katey none of that. Instead, he said, 'I'm sorry if telling you this causes you pain; believe me, that's not my intention, but I thought it might… I don't know, help or something, to know that it wasn't all in vain. I didn't put you through all that hurt, everything we went through, for nothing. I hope that you get to be as happy as I am now Katey, I honestly do.'

And as she could hear his utter genuineness in his tone, she smiled. 'So do I. And I hope you two will be very happy together.' It wasn't a cliché, she meant it. As Ray had said, what was the point in all that pain that they had all gone through, if none of them had got their happy ending? And if Ray and Neela didn't quite deserve it, well, they deserved it more than she did.

She ended the call and walked home quickly. She took the elevator up to the very top floor of her building, and let herself into her apartment. She hadn't been exaggerating to Ray; it was truly beautiful, and she loved it. It was her haven. And she had a good job, no, an amazing job, which she adored. And she drove a very new, very shiny BMW, and wore designer clothes, and was the envy of all her friends.

And if she slept night after night in a cold, lonely bed, that served her right for coming between Ray and Neela in the first place, right?


	10. Susan and Memories

Disclaimer: As before.

Author's Note: Here goes the Susan chapter, it's taken me absolutely ages to come up with a good idea for this, but I think I like the way this turned out. For some odd reason, I see to get inspiration for this story whenever I'm stuck in traffic – probably for the simple fact that I can't write it down, so sod's law, that's when I think of something good! I managed to keep all this in my head until I got home though, so here you go. Timewise, it's the latest of all the chapters, another couple of years after the wedding. By the way, I couldn't find Chuck's last name anywhere, so I've called him Chuck Martin for the sake of argument. If anyone knows it, please let me know, and I'll edit it in. (And please excuse the choice of highway, all I looked up was that there is Route 57 _somewhere _near Chicago, if it's not the right road that they would be on, then feel free to correct me) Also, sorry if you're waiting for another chapter of Back to the Beginning – I Do is being shown on Channel 4 tomorrow, so I want to watch it before I start writing, but the next installment should be up tomorrow night or the following day. And sorry for the immensely long chapter here, I just kept writing away and it's turned into something of an epic.

'Are we nearly there yet?' seven year old Janey Martin whined from the back seat of the family station wagon.

'Only another hour to go sweetie,' Chuck answered his daughter.

'An hour? An hour is forever. I need to go to the toilet.'

'No you don't,' he replied bracingly. 'It won't be long now.'

'I do,' she moaned, 'because Scott keeps elbowing me in the tummy.'

'Scott, stop elbowing your sister.'

'I'm not,' he cried out in affronted exclamation.

'Are too.'

'Are not.'

Cosmo, with his seniority of three years over his sister and brother, younger still, had thus far been keeping out of the argument with the headphones of his ipod embedded in his ears and a blank stare fixed on the passing Illinois landscape. When the row escalated into violence though, one of the headphones was pulled out of his ear, and he waded in as well.

'Hey, hey Dad, make them stop. Scott, stop it. Don't hit me. If you hit me, I'll hit you back.'

There was a loud wail as Cosmo's misplaced punch hit his sister, and the car was full of screams.

Susan groaned. This had been Chuck's idea from the start; his cousin had a cabin in upstate Illinois that he said they could use for a week, and Chuck had thought it was a great idea for a family holiday. It was destined to be a disaster from the start. It was now pouring with rain, half dark even though it was only three in the afternoon, with lightning flickering on the distant horizon just in the direction they were headed, and there was World War Three going on in the back seat.

'If you three don't stop fighting, I'm going to turn this car around and drive right back home again,' Chuck shouted. They all knew it was an empty threat. "Home" was now Richmond, Virginia, where she was a Professor of Emergency Medicine in one of the larger hospitals there. Now the children were older, and all at school, Chuck was working again; he'd recently finished a refresher course and was hoping to get back onto a flight crew soon, working as a paramedic in the meantime, until an opening came up.

'Good,' Cosmo replied to his father sulkily. 'No-one wanted to come on this stupid holiday anyway.'

Susan secretly agreed with her son, but she thought it wise to keep the opinion to herself. 'Don't talk to you father like that Cosmo,' she said wearily. She pretended not to hear him mumbling under his breath. 'Scott, Janey, stop fighting. We don't have all that long to go now, and when we get there, we'll go and get a pizza or something.'

As usual, the children did as she told them. She wasn't sure if that was because they were more scared of her than they were Chuck, which was likely, or that, being the worse parent, she resorted to bribery far more frequently, which was even more likely, but at times like these, she was grateful for it. It meant she could have a little bit of much needed peace.

She had felt the miles going by as they neared Chicago in her bones. They weren't planning on travelling through the city, but they would be skirting around the edge of it and she hadn't been back in a long time, so that was close enough, she decided, to allow herself to indulge in a little reflection.

Susan Lewis, resident, Chief Resident, Chief of Emergency Medicine. It had taken her a long time to get from one end of the journey to the other, and it had been a rocky road, but looking back, she had loved her time at County. First time around had been so long ago, half a lifetime away now it seemed, but she remembered it too well.

Her most overwhelming memory of County was Mark Greene. He was just… Doctor Greene, and always, always would be. First and foremost, he had been an amazing and inspirational teacher, and she was utterly certain that she would _never _have become the doctor she did without his tuition and guidance. He always knew how far he could push you, then go a little bit further, but never let you fall over the edge. And if you did, he'd be there to catch you. He lost his marriage, several years' worth of a close relationship with his daughter, all so he could devote more of his time, more of his life, to saving lives and more than that, to simply helping people. He was one of those sort of characters that, if you were really, really lucky, you might come across once in your life, yet she had had the honour of being close enough to him to say that she truly knew him.

She didn't know when she fell in love with him. Maybe it had always been there. Maybe it had been from the very first time she met him, with his boyish smile and mischievous streak that she had felt more for him than she knew she should for her married mentor. He just brought out a side to her that no-one else ever had; if when she had been running the ER someone had put a med student's leg in plaster while they were asleep, she would have hung, drawn and quartered them and used their entrails as Christmas decorations, but when she and Mark had done it to Carter, it seemed like the funniest thing in the world.

They had always seemed so damn in tune. It became impossible to hide things from him, like when he had found out that Chloe had taken off and she was taking care of Little Susie. She hadn't told him, but he'd still discovered it. Like when the entire ER was gossiping about them, and she'd tried to hide that little leap of excitement that her heart gave at the thought that people would even think it possible. All it took was one look into her tequila blurred eyes, and he saw the secret she was hiding there.

The only thing she had managed to keep from him was that she was leaving. She had left it too late for him to do anything about it, to beg her to stay, because even though she had wanted him to so, so much, she knew that her place, right then, was with Chloe and Little Susie. He had chased her to the station though, and they got to say the words they had needed to. That was something. And a kiss, just one, but it was enough.

Maybe it was better that things had turned out the way they had. That way, their love, founded on an unbreakable friendship, would never be sullied by rows and arguments, and disappointed expectations, and too much working overtime. It would stay just the way it had been on the station platform, perfect, forever.

And even after everything that came later, returning to find him married, she knew, in the moment that their eyes had met for the very last time, in the ER, before a curtain had been swept across between them, a goodbye in his eyes that he couldn't find the words to say, that that love had stayed perfect to the end. And maybe next time, in another life, they might get another chance, and next time, they might not pass it up.

Of course, Mark wasn't the only memory from Chicago that she still clung on to, although his was the one that still had the power to move her sometimes, late at night, when she couldn't sleep, and she sat up, fingering sadly the silly photos she still had of them together in the photo booth at the funfair.

She remembered how she and Weaver had fought like cat and dog. Hindsight, and maturity, now told her that the fault had been largely hers. All right, so Weaver was hard and irascible for most of the time, but Susan knew she had gone out of her way to aggravate her every chance she got, and if it wasn't for the fear of Mark's anger or disappointment, she would probably have been even more hostile. But if Weaver had been riding her hard to try to elicit a superior standard of work from her, well, frankly, she had to say that she preferred Mark's method of teaching.

When she had returned, the animosity between them was gone, but not forgotten. Sometimes, there were still days where she had wanted to march up to Kerry's oversized office and strangle her self important throat. Then there were others when she saw a softer side of her, the hope in her eyes as she went off to meet her mother for dinner, and the way she had tried, in her detached, clinical way, to show her support for her at her tenure interview, and she wondered why they hadn't just become friends. It would have been a lot easier.

There were others to, memories of whom now came tumbling back to her. Abby, her best friend. What was she doing now? Was she still there? Had she finally achieved her dream of becoming a doctor? If she had, the R2 that she'd left would be an attending now. It upset her that she didn't know, that their friendship had not survived the time and the miles between them. And then there was Carter, who she had watched on the achingly long journey from student to Associate Professor. It still niggled her, just a little bit, that he'd received tenure over her, but God knows there was never anyone more deserving than Carter. She could imagine him now, out in Africa, fighting a humanitarian battle that he would never win but always giving his all. That was Carter. Nothing less than two hundred per cent, all of the time. He'd learned that from Mark.

She glanced across at Chuck. She tried not to think of County anymore, because somehow; she didn't know why, considering he had worked there too, it seemed disloyal. To think of County when she wasn't there had always seemed to lead her to wishing she was back there, and to do that would imply that she wasn't happy with Chuck, and she really was. He wasn't second best, and she loved him, but she missed that procession of faces that had become part of her life. The ones she had loved, Mark, Abby, Carter, and the ones that she had worked her ass off to try to make better doctors, Pratt and Morris, Ray and Neela, and even right through to the ones that had driven her up the wall, like Weaver and Frank. She missed them; she didn't think she had realised quite how much until now.

She squinted out of the window, through the rain, trying to make out the familiar skyline of the city. She wondered if Chuck would mind taking a detour, it wouldn't be too far out of the way. It had been a long time, and it would be nice to see some familiar faces again. She wondered who would be there.

She was just about to open her mouth to ask him when all of a sudden, over the angry howls of wind, she heard an ear splitting screech of tyres. Then a pair of blinding lights, as if in slow motion, came flying straight over the central barrier of the road, and headed straight for them. Chuck hit the horn, and she heard it blaring, but it was to no avail. The car kept coming, and she knew that there was no way they could avoid it. She heard the children screaming in the back seat, and she thought she heard her own fearful voice as well. Chuck tried to swerve but the car slid in the rain and didn't move in the direction he was desperately trying to steer it into. The sickening sound of crunching metal just had time to burst in her ears before everything faded to black.

It was a relatively quiet shift for once. They had been expecting it to be a lot worse with the freak storms that had been swirling around for most of the day, but so far, things seemed to be going smoothly out there. Ray and Morris were indulging in wheelchair races up and down the corridor, much to the chagrin of Frank, who said there was no damn use running a book on it as Ray had an unfair advantage. Everyone was kicking back and relaxing, making the most of the unusual rest. Someone had braved the weather for a coffee and doughnut run, so most people were hanging around the admit desk, chatting.

Then the radio bleeped into life. 'Unit Alpha Romeo 3, calling County General.'

Chuny reached out and put the headset on. 'This is County General, Marquez responding. Go ahead Alpha Romeo 3.'

Everyone pricked their ears up. Alpha Romeo 3 was one of the Air Rescue units, meaning that there had probably been a major incident somewhere. This could be the start of the rush they were expecting.

'Two vehicle MVA out on Route 57, seven casualties, six serious, one critical. We have the critical on board with us, ETA ten minutes. Land crews following with the others.'

'Copy that. Do you have a history for your patient Alpha Romeo 3?' Chuny responded.

'Unknown female, early mid forties. Front seat passenger in the station wagon, severe abdominal injuries, probable broken pelvis and internal damage, query internal bleeding. Currently stable with a BP of 100 over 70, pulse 73. Unconscious but breathing is steady, pupils are light responsive and a gag reflex present.'

'Thank you Alpha Romeo 3. Received all that. Over.'

She turned to the others. 'Hear all that guys?'

Ray and Morris had already abandoned their game, the wheelchairs stowed away, and suddenly they looked every inch the professional, capable doctors they were underneath their laid back demeanours. 'We heard,' Ray replied seriously. 'Everyone down here get ready, make sure all the trauma rooms are stocked up, and everything is where it should be. Morris, Haleh and Dawn, up to the roof with me. Everyone else, get set for when the others arrive.' He looked around at his team, proud in the knowledge that whoever this poor person was that they were about to have to piece back together again was, they were about to receive the best care in the whole damn country. 'Okay guys, let the games begin.'

They pulled on their trauma gowns, and raincoats over the top, in the lift on their way up to the roof. The rain was still pouring, in great fat drops, and they waited inside until the roar of the helicopter drowned out the weather and they saw the lights shining on the roof.

They ran out, the stinging rain blown straight at them by the whirring of the helicopter blades and went to meet the crew. Ray addressed the flight doctor, a guy from Mercy he knew slightly. 'Doctor James, how are we doing here?'

'BP has dropped to 90 over 65 since we radioed through. Becoming more tachycardic in response to that, and may require intubation soon. Pupils still responsive but weakened gag reflex,' he summarised, shouting over the noise of the engines and the storm.

'Right, let's get her downstairs as soon as possible. Onto the gurney on the count of three. One, two, three…' They all heaved, and began dashing towards the elevator. He wasn't sure if he could be heard or not, but as they ran through the rain, he made a point of talking to the patient. He remembered when they were scraping him off the road after his accident, even though he couldn't open his eyes, or speak at all, he could somehow still hear what was happening, and he remembered wishing that someone would just damn talk to him. From then on, he didn't care how out of it a patient seemed to be, he always made a point of telling them what was going on, just in case.

He looked down at her, but in the near darkness, with the rain falling, and blood all over her face, he couldn't make out her features at all. 'Ma'am, I'm Doctor Barnett, and you're at County General Hospital. You've been in a car accident, but we're going to take care of you.'

When they reached the relative haven of the lift, Ray and Morris sprang into action, carefully examining her, Morris doing limbs while Ray concentrated on the abdomen, which had clearly suffered the worst of the trauma. Seatbelt injuries by the look of it, they must have been hit by a tremendous force. There was a cut on the woman's forehead where she had hit the windscreen, or the windscreen had come to hit her, and there was a lot of blood.

Dawn was busy checking BP and pulse, and other vitals, and Haleh was fixing up a nasal oxygen tube when suddenly, she brushed some matted hair away from the face, securely strapped to the spinal board, and used the sleeve of her trauma gown to wipe away some of the blood. Ray watched her, curious, with half an eye as he continued his examination.

Then a look of utter shock and horror passed over the face of the normally completely unflappable Haleh, and Ray had to question her. 'Haleh, what is it?'

'I think you'd better take a look at her.'

Frowning, Ray stepped up to the top of the gurney. He looked down at the face, trying to see whatever it was Haleh saw. 'I'm sorry Haleh, I don't…'

'Don't you recognise her Ray? It's Susan Lewis.' Morris froze, and looked at them, horrified. Ray stared down again and tried to make out the features of his former boss in the swollen, bloodstained face below them. And now Haleh had said it, with a sinking feeling in his gut, Ray did recognise her.

'Right,' he said quietly. 'Step it up guys, you know the drill. It's one of our own now. Dawn, as soon as we get downstairs, make sure everyone knows this is Susan Lewis. And find out who the other victims are, one will probably be her husband…' he searched his memory for the name.

'Chuck,' Haleh supplied. 'He was called Chuck.'

'Her husband Chuck. And page Carter,' he added. 'Get him in here. He'll want to be here.'

He could tell Dawn wanted to ask who Susan Lewis was, but for once the loquacious nurse knew from the grim faces of her colleagues that it would be best not to ask. They were all far too focussed on doing their jobs.

Susan was dreaming. She was dreaming this odd, crazy dream that she was at County again, except instead of being at work, now she was there as a patient. Distantly, she could hear familiar shouting voices.

'BP is dropping, down to 70 over 50 now.' There was the incessant beep of machines. 'She's getting more difficult to bag.'

'All right, thank you Haleh. We're going to have to intubate, Morris, can you do the honours.' Then the voice became a little softer. 'You stay with us Doctor Lewis. Come on, you have to keep fighting for us.'

'BP still dropping.'

'Right, she must be bleeding from somewhere. Keep the units of O-neg coming until surgery gets here. Where _is_ surgery? We need them here right now.'

She felt the heaviness that had been plaguing her eyes throughout the dream lift a little, and her eyes flickered open for a moment. She looked up and saw Morris standing over her. The comedy ER nightmare – there were always jokes about what you would do if you woke up in the ER and saw Morris standing over you. She couldn't believe she was dreaming it now; she tried to laugh but there was this strange feeling blocking her throat, as if there was something in it, as if there was a tube in her throat. That was it, Morris had just intubated her, why had he done that?

She wanted to tell him to take it out again, but it was stopping her from talking as well. In the end, she decided it might be easier just to go back to sleep. Sleep was good. If only all the shouting would stop, and they would leave her alone, then she could go to sleep. If only that infernal beeping noise would stop…

Dubenko came bursting through the doors. 'What have we got?'

'At bloody last,' Ray snapped. 'Where have you lot been?'

'I've been rather busy doing my job. Obviously you aren't used to having to wait for a consult from someone who isn't your wife.' Dubenko had been working for nearly thirty hours now and was in a vile mood; with Neela on maternity leave – again – he had found it particularly difficult to juggle his dual commitments of Chief of both Staff and Surgery. He had been used to passing most of the responsibility of the OR to Neela, and now he was back doing both again, he was driving Frederica mad with all the time he was spending here. He'd just endured a completely justified phone call from her, requesting, her voice dripping with an icy coldness that told him he had a _lot _of making up to do, a reason why he had missed lunch with her and her mother who was visiting from England when he had promised unequivocally that, this time, he would make time for it.

Ray glowered at him, but let the jibe lie. He was here now, and at least it was Dubenko who had answered the page. At least now Susan stood a chance.

He was about to give Dubenko the history when he was interrupted by Morris. 'Ray, we're losing her. She's going into v-fib.'

'All right, give her another round of epi and –' The machines started going crazy as she went into full arrest. 'Dawn, start compressions please. Okay, charging to 300. Clear.'

He shocked her hopefully, and watched as Haleh crossed herself.

'Come on Doctor Lewis,' he heard her whisper. 'If we saved Carol, and we saved Carter, and we saved Pratt and Chen, and we saved Neela, then I swear to God, we're not going to let you die either.'

This wasn't the first time he had worked on a major trauma incident where the patient was someone he knew, there had been the balcony collapse back when he was an intern, and when Jerry got shot of course, but he knew he could never get used to it. He didn't like to think how many times Haleh must have done it. Most of the incidents she was referring to he hadn't even heard of. Who was Carol? And what happened to Carter? He took a small grain of comfort from the fact that she seemed to list so many that had been saved.

'Doctor Lewis? Susan Lewis?' Dubenko asked. Ray shot him a grim look. 'Why did no-one tell me?'

'Because you weren't here. Now, stand clear. Charging to 320 this time.'

Ray felt himself hold his breath until he saw the flat green line on the screen flicker back into life again. 'And we have a sinus rhythm.' He stepped aside for a moment, leaving it to Morris while he filled Dubenko in.

'It is Susan Lewis, she was brought in by chopper about half an hour ago following an MVA out of the freeway. She was relatively stable at the scene but her pressure has been steadily dropping ever since she arrived – the journey must have aggravated an injury. She's bleeding from somewhere in the abdomen, as that's where the major trauma occurred and if we don't find it and stop it soon, we're not going to be able to bring her back next time she pulls that stunt on us. We've been pumping O-neg into her but it's not keeping her pressure up at all. She's had nearly four units already.'

Dubenko assessed the situation in less than a second. 'Right, she's not stable enough to make it upstairs. I'm going to have to go in down here.' He took both Ray and Morris into his gaze. 'One of you will assist me, there's no-one free from surgery and there isn't time to get anyone else in. Which one?'

They glanced at each other. 'When you were a student, did you do an OR rotation?' Ray asked his friend.

Morris nodded.

'Then it's you man. I never did surgery.'

There were no arguments; both knew there was no time.

'All right Doctor Morris, thank you. Let's get started. Ray, I want you to stay in here. If she has another arrest, we may have to crack her chest for cardiac massage. Doctor Morris and I will be working on the bleed, the task of keeping her alive long enough to do that is all yours.'

Once he was in, it took Dubenko only a matter of minutes to find the bleed, a small tear in the renal artery that he swiftly clamped. He cast an eye over the plethora of machines, and gave a small, satisfied smile at the result.

'Pressure coming up again,' Haleh said. There was a collective sigh of relief.

'Let's not rest on our laurels please. Can someone please ring up to the OR to see if there is a theatre free?'

Dawn made the call. 'Sorry, nothing free for at least an hour,' she relayed.

'In that case, we will be doing the repair works down here. I hope no-one has dinner plans ladies and gentlemen. We could be here for a while.'

It was the following morning when Susan woke. She had just had the strangest dream, well, nightmare. She had been in some sort of car accident, and she had woken up at County to see Morris standing over her. What an odd dream to have, she thought, wondering what on earth might have sparked it. Then, slowly, she opened her eyes, expecting to see the familiarity of her bedroom, light and airy, in her home in Richmond.

Instead, she saw… County. The walls were a different colour to what she remembered, but it was _definitely _County. Oh God, did that mean it wasn't a dream?

She tried to drag a breath into her lungs, but as consciousness embraced her further, she realised she was intubated. She coughed a little at the feeling of the tube in her throat, and immediately Morris appeared at her side.

'Doctor Lewis, nice to see you back with us. Now, I'm just going to check your obs and if you're looking okay, I'll take the tube out, okay?' She nodded, and after a couple of minutes, he seemed satisfied. He took off the tapes holding the tube in place, and said, 'right, cough for me, and I'll remove it.'

She did as she was told, wincing at the pain as the tube passed up her throat. 'Thank you,' she croaked.

Morris tilted her bed up so she could sit up a little, and fixed her a nasal oxygen tube. 'No problem, is there anything I can get you?'

'A glass of water please, for my throat.'

He went over to the side, and poured her some water, holding it for her while she took a couple of tentative sips through a straw.

'You gave us quite a fright back there Doctor Lewis,' he smiled at her.

'Where…' she began hoarsely, then corrected herself. 'No, I know _where _I am, but I have no idea how the hell I got here. I think I remember a car crash…'

Morris pulled up a chair, and sat down, pleased to see her awake again. They had finished working on her sometime around midnight, but no-one had gone home, even though their shift had ended hours before. He, Ray, Carter and the nurses had all been taking turns to sit with her. There had been talk of moving her up to ICU but although there was the bedspace, there was some sort of nurses' walkout going on over something and they were short staffed. With the Kerry Weaver Center, she would receive the same standard of care down with them, and Ray had argued strongly, with Chuck's support, that that was where she belonged.

'Yes, a car lost control out on the freeway in the rain and crashed into you. You were going on holiday with Chuck and the children.'

'Oh God, my family, are they okay?' she asked in a panicked voice.

'They're fine,' he reassured her. 'Chuck's up on one of the general medical wards, just for observation, he has a broken leg, and the children have all been admitted to paeds for the night. Ray got them in there, there's nothing wrong with any of them, but if we didn't find them a bed, they might have been put into care for the night, so Ray pulled some strings and…'

'Thank God they're all fine. Thank God. What about me? Something tells me I'm not looking so good.'

'You're looking a lot better now than you did at three o'clock yesterday afternoon,' he quipped. 'The trauma you suffered in the accident caused a tear in your renal artery and you had major internal bleeding. I'm afraid we had to cut you open down here, but don't worry, Ray and I didn't take a knife and fork to you, Dubenko did it, I assisted.' He couldn't help but tag his own name on the end. Old habits die hard.

'How major?' she asked, and he could see the cogs in her doctor's brain begin to whir.

'Let's just say the blood bank will be running low for a while, but you're not to worry about that. You're the patient now,' he said firmly.

'They say doctors make the worst patients,' she replied, and laughed weakly. 'So, you're still at County I see then.'

'Yes, I am. You're looking at Doctor Morris, Director of Emergency Medicine research, and as of last month, Associate Professor Morris. I've just been awarded tenure.'

Shortly after Carter returned, Ray had taken them both aside, and said he wasn't entirely comfortable with being their boss. He said it just didn't feel right. While he would be Chief of Emergency Medicine, and would deal with the overall running of the department, he wanted Carter to run the Residency programme, and be in charge of teaching under the title of Professor of Emergency Medicine Education, and wanted Morris to become a Director of ER research. He said they were both new roles, but he thought it meant they could all play to their strengths for the good of the team, and he jokingly nicknamed them the Holy Trinity. It had seemed a new and revolutionary idea at the time, to have authority split not just two ways, but three, but it had worked incredibly well for them and for the department. There wasn't a better ER anywhere, and everyone knew it.

'Tenure?' Susan asked a little incredulously. How could _Morris _have been awarded tenure, when she had failed here? Talk about kicking a person while they're down. Having said that, there was something about the calm demeanour of Morris that told her he was a very different man from the power crazy, sycophantic Chief Resident that she had left behind, so she could hardly comment on how deserving he was. She didn't even know him anymore.

'Yes,' he said, and looked as proud as punch about it.

'Congratulations. Who else is around here these days? You mentioned Ray…' Her voice was getting slowly stronger as the effects of the intubation began to wear off.

'Yes, Ray's here, he's –'

'Well, I must say, I'm surprised he's stuck around.'

'He's the Chief of Emergency Medicine now,' he answered, and sounded almost as proud of his best friend's achievements as he was his own.

'They made _Ray _Chief of Emergency Medicine? Who did he have to sleep with to get that job?'

Morris looked at her quietly, trying to hold his temper. Even though he knew it wasn't remotely Susan's fault that she had made such a comment; she of course had no idea of everything that happened, it still made his blood boil. How dare someone, anyone, mock Ray and cast an aspersion on his achievements after everything he had been through?

He sighed, using the time it gave him to count to ten. 'I forgot how long you've been gone,' he said simply. 'You tend to lose a sense of time at County, but it's been what, nine years, hasn't it? Things have changed.'

'What's that meant to mean?' she frowned.

Morris checked the clock. He should be getting home to Hope and Matthew really, but she knew where he was and understood that he wanted to stay. He supposed there was time to tell the story. He grinned, and began in a joking tone. 'Well, if you're sitting comfortably, I'll tell you a story.'

'A story, huh?' She laughed.

'Once upon a time…' Then he became serious. 'It all started just after you left really. I don't know if you know, but Kovac took over from you as Chief.'

'I had a feeling he would. When I handed in my resignation, Anspaugh intimated that they would be asking him to take over.'

'Well, they did, and he accepted. Things started up between him and Abby, and they had a baby together. Joe, he must be nearly eight now I think. They have a daughter as well, and live in Croatia now.'

Imagine that, after all those years, Abby and Luka ended up together, Susan thought. She suddenly wished she had stayed in touch with everyone. She and Abby had been so close, yet now, she didn't even know that her former best friend had _two _children, and lived halfway across the world. She smiled at the idea of Abby as a mother. She couldn't imagine two better parents than Abby and Luka.

'They got married here in Chicago, about two years after you left. It was a real ER wedding, Luka hired an old warehouse space, but it was all planned by Hope.' He realised Susan wouldn't know who Hope was. 'Hope is my wife, she started here as an intern back when Kovac was Chief and is _obsessed_ with weddings. She's got quite the reputation as the ER wedding planner,' he explained. 'It was a perfect evening, except…'

Susan watched as a shadow passed over his face as what was clearly an unwanted memory returned.

'Except how it ended. There was a fight between Ray and Gates – it doesn't matter who Gates was, only that he's gone now – that had been brewing all that year and Ray was drunk so Pratt chucked him out. On his way home, he was hit by a truck and ended up with a double below-knee amputation.' He registered Susan's look of horror, but didn't pause in his narrative. If he stopped, he wouldn't start again. 'He disappeared off the radar after that; no-one heard from him for a very long time, too long, but when Pratt left to take the job of Chief over at Northwestern he persuaded Ray to come back. He took the attending position that was going, but he's been the Chief for a few years now. He's the best thing that's ever happened to this place,' he ended emphatically.

Susan felt an instant pang of guilt at not only her earlier comment about Ray, but her whole attitude towards him as an intern. She had ridden him so hard to try to get him to be a better doctor, a more caring person, and he obviously had it in him all along. Something as horrific as what he had been through must have brought it to the fore.

'He must have been very strong to get through all that. It must have changed him a lot.'

Finally, Morris cracked a grin. 'Hmm, maybe. I think you could probably say Neela knocked him into shape a bit as well.'

'Neela? Surely those two don't _still _live together.'

He laughed, and she asked what was so funny.

'Well, you could say that. They're married, and they've just had their second baby.'

'Ray and Neela are married?' She sounded incredulous.

'It's been a long, hard road for both of them, but yes, they're married, and happy, and are finally enjoying the life together they both deserve.' Morris wondered how so many years that he had to watch them struggle through could now be distilled into a few short words. It was in the past now though. None of them thought about all that anymore, and they definitely didn't talk about it. He hated doing so now.

Susan could tell he was uncomfortable, so she changed the subject. 'So, who else is still here? You said Pratt was at Northwestern now?'

He was about to fill her in on everyone else – he was looking forward to seeing her face when he told her she was currently lying in the Kerry Weaver Emergency Medicine Center; they never had been able to stand each other – when Timmy poked his head around the door.

'Sorry Doctor Morris, Hope's on the phone. She was wondering if you knew when you're going to be home.' He turned to Susan, and smiled at her. 'Good to see you looking better Doctor Lewis,' he said.

'Okay Timmy, thanks, I'll come out and talk to her in a second.' Timmy disappeared, and Morris got up to go.

Susan was staring at the door. 'Timmy? Was that Timmy who worked here _years _ago?'

'Did he? Oh, I never knew that. He started after Jerry got shot.'

'Jerry got shot?' she echoed.

At this rate, he was never going to get away. He had been glad to stay until she woke up, but now she had, he was eager to get home to his family. Matthew went to a pre-school nursery group now some mornings, and he loved telling his Daddy all his stories of what he got up to, and Morris loved to hear them. 'I'll send someone in to finish the story,' he offered. 'I'll make sure you get an update on Chuck and the children.'

'Thank you Morris.' Just before he left, she reached out to him, and laid a hand on his arm. When she had worked with him, she had had virtually no respect for him, and now he had just helped save her life. Although he had said very little about himself – an obvious sign really – she didn't think Ray was the only one who had changed. '_Thank you._'

He knew what she meant. 'No problem. All part of the service Doctor Lewis.'

After he had gone, she used the peace to reflect on everything she had been told. She was still processing her own accident, let alone all the news she had learned. She would have to bribe the next person to come in to let her have a look at her chart. Morris had told her what had happened to her, but she needed to know just how close she'd come, just how much she had to be thankful for. An intern, she thought, you can always bribe an intern. They were, with few exceptions, poor, hungry and endlessly seeking approval, and could accordingly be bought by offers of money, food or praise.

To her _utter _surprise though, the next person to walk in was not an intern, it was someone who was most definitely not an intern. For a moment, she thought she must be asleep again, back in her confused, mixed up nightmare again, because she could have sworn the person walking towards her, smiling widely in friendship and plonking himself on Morris's recently vacated chair was… 'Carter?'

'Not who you expected?'

'I don't know who I expected, but it wasn't you. What happened to Africa, to Kem?'

The smile he gave her was a sad one, but he took comfort from the fact that now, at last, he could look back at Africa and smile. It had taken the longest time, but finally he was able to, even though there was precious little to smile about. 'Kem and I didn't work out. The time that I chased her to Paris, I told her that we didn't have to let losing Joshua define us, but I think we couldn't help it. It was one of those things that was nobody's fault, it just had suffered too many blows to be able to get back up from. And as for Africa, it wasn't as… healing as I hoped it would be. So,' he said, missing out a massive portion of the story, 'I came back here.' Even now, only one person here at County knew the real reason he had returned, knew about Aimée, and he had only just managed to tell her.

Susan knew that there was more to the story than he had told her, but she didn't mind him not telling her. You couldn't work in a job where you confronted death every single day of your life and not be haunted by some ghosts.

'What about you, where are you living now?'

'We live in Richmond, Virginia. I'm an ER Chief in one of the hospitals there and Chuck is hopefully going to be getting back onto a flight crew soon. We moved there about eighteen months ago; Little Susie is there, she's doing her nurse training, and as Chloe's well… Chloe, we decided to move there to support her a bit.'

He nodded slowly, understanding the responsibility Susan felt towards her niece. He remembered what it had been like when Little Susie – Carter found it amusing that the poor girl, who must now be nearly twenty, was still referred to as "Little Susie" – had been a baby and Chloe took off. Then he remembered why he had originally come in to see her.

'I went up to see Chuck and the children a little while ago. The children have all been discharged, and they were just waiting for the attending to sign off on Chuck then he'll be out too. They'll be down to see you as soon as they can.'

She smiled at the thought of her family. In the excitement of seeing so many old faces, she hadn't given them as much thought as she should have done; now she realised that she ached to have them with her, to hold her children in her arms and see Chuck's lopsided, unhandsome, but so, so loving smile.

He saw the look of love and longing in her eyes as he spoke of her family, and returned her smile. 'You and Chuck are still good then?'

'Yes, even though sometimes even now I can't imagine myself falling for someone like him, I mean, he's so different from –' She paused. Although she sometimes couldn't help but think of Mark, she hadn't spoken his name in years, and she couldn't quite get it out.

In the silence that followed, Carter knew who she meant without her having to say his name, and for that she was grateful.

'But I love him, I really do.'

'I'm happy for you, you deserve it,' he said.

'What about you Carter? If you're not in Africa, if you're not with Kem, then are you seeing someone here in Chicago?'

He nodded, not sure if he was comfortable enough to confide her identity. Even his colleagues didn't know for sure, although he suspected the more astute ones guessed. It was the ER, Gossip Capital of Chicago, after all.

After a short pause, she grinned at him. 'Are you really not going to tell me who?'

He shook his head. 'We want to keep it quiet. We don't want the whole department knowing.' _This time._

'Someone from the hospital then? If you won't tell me, then it must be someone I know,' she said, giving him an insightful look. 'That narrows it down quite a lot. Chuny? Sam?' He still didn't say anything, refusing to rise to the bait. 'Come on Carter, I won't tell.'

He gave her an enigmatic smile, and she was sure she was going to be able to break him with a little more work, but she didn't get the chance. Just at that moment, the door swung open, and Janey and Scott, Janey with a small cut above her eyebrow, and Scott sporting a bruise on his jaw that was as likely to have been sustained during the fight in the back of the car as it was the accident, held them open while Cosmo, panting a little with the effort, wheeled Chuck in before him.

The children flocked towards her with cries of elation at seeing she was okay and Chuck made sure the wheelchair was positioned so he could reach out to her, taking her hand. All thoughts of Mark, of Carter's love life, of County were gone as she was surrounded by her family.

Carter, sensing this, withdrew quietly, allowing them their private moment of relief and happiness. At the door, he turned back, and Susan caught his eye. Against his better judgement, he mouthed a name at her, smiling as she cast about in her memory for a face to link to the name, then her surprised expression as she remembered.

Then he left her with her family.


	11. Harper Tracy

Disclaimer: As before.

Author's Note: This chapter is for Moonlight Enchantments, who left me heaps of lovely reviews the other day (great to come back from the dentist to that!) and also because this is about one of "ye olde" characters, as requested. I am aware that many of you probably don't remember Harper Tracy, but I'm going to roll with this chapter as these things never go away until you write them. I hope that even if you don't remember her, you'll still like this one, it's as much about Ray and Neela, and Carter as it is her anyway. And as for the chapters that are so long you need a tea break half way through; well, I'm just going to embrace them. Hope you enjoy. This chapter occurs just a few weeks before the previous one. The inclusion of the Rubadoux storyline here comes from mid season 2 and end of season 11 by the way, sorry if it means nothing to you.

Riding the El to work again seemed bizarre. It had been _so many _years since she had even been to Chicago, yet standing here on the overcrowded train, too early in the morning, it all felt strangely familiar, as if she hadn't spent the last eighteen – God, had it really been _eighteen _– years clawing her way up the ladder, in Dallas to begin with, where she had finished her studies, followed by a residency in Washington DC, then years as an attending in Los Angeles.

And now, she was back at County.

Harper Tracy wasn't entirely sure what she felt coming back to Chicago. In truth, she hadn't given the emotional aspect of it very much thought. It had been the better part of two decades since she had worked at County, and she felt no great strength of feeling one way or the other about returning. She doubted there would still be anyone left there that she knew anyway. The simple fact of it was that she had been an attending for quite long enough now, and she had been on the lookout for a Chief of Obstetrics post at a large, good hospital for some time. When she heard that an opening was coming up at County, she had considered it, weighed up the merits and downsides for about thirty seconds, which was about as much consideration she had ever given anything, and decided to throw her name in the hat.

She'd been invited for an interview a few weeks ago. She'd met a room full of suits, some of which she had a feeling she recognised, but if they had been old and wizened then, they were doubly so now, so she couldn't be sure. The Chief of Staff had been different though, a softly spoken man, unusual for a surgeon, as he said he was, with a welcoming smile, and had been entirely friendlier. He had let her do most of the talking, and she told them of how after her OB rotation in Dallas, she'd made the decision to change her specialisation from Emergency Medicine to Obstetrics. She had taken them briefly through her residency, described in more detail her time in LA, the responsibilities she had been charged with, a couple of interesting cases, papers she had submitted, and then finished with what she thought she could bring to Obstetrics at County.

When she had come to the end of her little speech, the Chief of Staff, who had introduced himself as Doctor Dubenko, sat back in his chair and smiled at her. 'Well, that all sounds very impressive Doctor Tracy. I think you and County could get along very well together. We have a very strong reputation here as a innovative, forward thinking hospital with a great focus on teaching, and I think you definitely have a lot to offer something like that.'

'I would like to think so,' she said. 'I very much enjoyed my time here when I was a student, and I am glad to hear that you're still a teaching hospital. That appeals to me.'

'Good, because as Chief of Obstetrics, that's definitely something you would be heavily involved with. Having said that, we have an interesting scheme going on in the ER, where the three senior attendings divide the workload of management between them, one as Chief, another as Research Director, and the third overseeing the residency programme and teaching commitments.'

'That's an interesting approach.' She had on her very best interview demeanour, careful speech and a bright, interested smile, having abandoned her usual attire for a smart, conservative black suit. She had been able to tell they were impressed.

They had continued with the pleasantries for a little longer, before someone's pager went off. Dubenko stood up, and she had taken the lead, rising to her feet and stepping forward to shake their hands.

'Thank you very much for your time,' she said.

'It was a pleasure to meet you. Now, we will be having various meetings over the next few days to discuss the post, but,' he glanced briefly at his compatriots. 'I think I speak for all of us here at County when I ask you not to take a post elsewhere without liaising with us first.'

She felt a rush of satisfaction and excitement when she knew, in that instant, that she had got the job, despite the severely disapproving look she saw from one of the most fossilised members of the board. She wondered what the look might be for, then she realised that as she had turned her head to the door, he must have caught a healthy eyeful of the line of earrings that chased their way up her ear. She forced herself to swallow a girlish giggle. Despite Weaver's firm beliefs to the contrary, she had found, over the years, that she had the ability to make her patients feel at ease no matter how many piercings she had. She'd felt like such a schoolgirl when Weaver had asked her to moderate her dress for work, and now she felt like that again. She'd found it funny then, and even funnier now.

The train pulled to a halt and she jumped off, running down the steps of the station, making her way to the hospital. She followed the signs to her, _her_, department. She'd already been in, a few days ago, to meet her staff, and they were there to greet her now. 'Welcome to County Doctor Tracy,' several people chorused.

'Thank you,' she smiled. 'It's good to be here.'

One of the attendings indicated a door a little way down the corridor. 'Your office is there. Go on in and get yourself settled. You'll have plenty enough time to get stuck in.'

She sat at her desk, grinning like an idiot, unable to believe she was actually _Doctor Harper Tracy, Chief of Obstetrics_. She even had, she saw, rifling through the drawers, her own headed paper. Imagine that. She had always been ambitious, ready to fight her corner, but not too hard to stop caring either. You had to care as a doctor; if you stopped caring, you lost the ability to help a person, that's what she believed. Her previous time at County had been influential in setting out that belief. She had been taught by some truly fantastic people, Mark Greene, Susan Lewis who had juggled her job with looking after her sister's baby, Weaver who despite being a medical student's nightmare, was a gifted doctor, and Doug Ross. Well, the less said about Doug Ross the better.

Sleeping with Doug had not been one of her finest moments, either personally or professionally. She'd just felt so lost, so alone that night, and she knew he had too, and it had just happened. These things did sometimes. Given the choice again, she knew she would have chosen differently, but she didn't quite regret it either. It had all turned out okay. She didn't jeopardise her career, and Doug didn't get sacked. However, that had been solely down to Mark's discretion, and she knew she had a lot to thank him for.

What she did regret about the whole sordid incident, was the way she had hurt Carter. He'd looked so _stricken _as she'd told him. She understood why. They'd been dating for a few weeks, and hadn't got any further than a few slightly more than friendly kisses in the car as he dropped her home after dinner, the movies, a hockey game, wherever they had been, yet there she was jumping into bed with Doug.

She'd begged him for another chance, and she was so glad he'd given her one. He was sweet, kind and caring, but there was an edge to him as well, an intensity that had drawn her to him, added an extra layer to that nice guy image. He was ambitious, just like she was, and was single minded in achieving his goals, which she admired, even if at times, like over the Vucelich study, she had wanted to throttle him for it. If she hadn't moved to Dallas, then maybe…

But she had, and she couldn't wish otherwise. Her OB rotation had really changed her outlook on things. The ER work she'd done at County had been fantastic, but the ER was for adrenaline junkies, people who liked the thrill of living life close to the edge, never knowing what might happen next, and never quite without the possibility of danger around the next corner. It all sounded good on paper, but she preferred to get her kicks out of the workplace. And in her opinion, there was no feeling in the whole world quite like the rush that went through you when, after hours of excruciating labour, you finally put a newborn baby in its mother's arms for the first time. It was just unbeatable.

She sat back in her chair, admiring her office. She hoped, of course, that she would be spending very little time in there, much preferring to be out seeing patients, but it was nice to know she was important enough to warrant her own space. There was still a little nameplate on the desk declaring her to be "Doctor Coburn" which she soon threw into a drawer. There was a space on the shelves among textbooks and medical journals that looked like it was begging to be filled by a pot plant of some sort. Better make it a cactus, she thought. Definitely something that doesn't require regular water or attention. Taking care of people, now that was fine, but anything that involved a long term responsibility just wasn't really her, although her tagline that she was young, and enjoying being irresponsible while she still had the opportunity and the ability to do so had been wearing significantly thinner since she had reached forty.

There was a knock on the door. 'Doctor Tracy?'

'Come on in.' She gave the attending who poked their head around the door, a Doctor Williams, she was ninety per cent sure, a friendly smile. 'What can I do for you?'

'I just thought I'd let you know, we've had a call up from the ER. One of the surgeons was down there on a consult and has gone into labour. Thirty seven weeks and it doesn't look like there's time to get her up here. They've had several traumas in and are getting slammed, they've requested we send a team down. Would you like to join us?'

Harper leapt to her feet eagerly. This was more like it. Not only was it a chance to get to work, she'd also meet some of her colleagues, and get to have a good look around the ER again as a bonus.

'I'd love to.'

'Right, on my count guys. One, two, three.' They all strained as, on Ray's count, they heaved the patient from the ambulance stretcher onto the gurney. Neela stepped back a little as they did so. At thirty seven weeks pregnant, it wasn't like she could actually get within about three feet of the action anyway.

'All right then,' Ray said. 'Chaz, what have we got?' Greg's brother was one of the paramedics who had brought the patient in.

'Twenty year old male, GSW to the right thigh, bullet must have caught the femoral artery, he's suffered significant blood loss, BP's down to 90 over 75…'

Neela tuned out of the patient's history as it was being relayed to them, although she knew she should be listening. A vice like pain began to grip her abdomen and she gritted her teeth against the agony, determined not to cry out.

It was only Braxton Hicks, nothing to worry about. She'd had them a few nights ago, they passed after a little while, and they would again now, she told herself. This was different though, a little voice in the back of her mind insisted. The pain was much worse than it had been before, and it was increasing in frequency. In fact, she had been carefully counting the period between them, and since she'd come downstairs for a consult about an hour ago, she'd gone from the odd, irregular flash of pain to full contractions every ten minutes.

She didn't want to have to tell anyone unless she had to. Ray had been on at her for weeks to give up work, they had argued about it endlessly. In all honesty, this pregnancy hadn't been quite as straightforward as the last. The morning sickness had been worse, and lasted longer, and she'd had a few problems with high blood pressure, but nothing to really worry about, nothing to justify giving up work, she had argued. If he realised now that she was in labour, he'd go mad.

God though, this contraction _really_ hurt. They were definitely getting worse.

She bloody hated it when Ray was right.

It passed, and Neela managed to get her mind back on the patient before them.

'Pressure's still dropping,' Sam warned.

'Right, I think I'm going to have to get in there and clamp the artery before he goes upstairs. Chuny, can I see the wound please?'

Chuny had been applying pressure to where a ragged hole had been ripped into the man's leg by the bullet. As soon as she moved her hands, a great arc of blood spurted upwards, and everyone jumped back.

'Chuny, pressure again until I'm prepared. Sam, can I have a scalpel please, and get some clamps ready. Five mgs of local anaesthetic into the wound area, suction on hand.'

Neela issued all her commands quickly, thankful for the fact that the critical nature of the case gave her an excuse for her sense of urgency. She was actually just trying to get the procedure done before the next contraction hit.

She didn't succeed. She was just trying to secure the clamp with fingers made slippery by the blood sloshing around when she felt the pain descend. She breathed deeply and clenched her jaw, trying to carry on with the procedure. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chuny frown at her as her hands began to tremble and a film of perspiration broke out on her forehead.

'Neela, are you all right?' she asked. Luckily, amid the chaos, no-one else heard the question, or noticed that there was something amiss.

'Not really,' she hissed through gritted teeth. 'I think I'm in labour, but don't tell Ray. I have to get this done first.' Her breath came a little easier as the contraction passed again.

'Neela,' she exclaimed. 'Don't be stupid.'

Finally, she managed to get the clamp in place, and stepped back. Just as she did so, she felt a warm, wet rush between her legs as her waters broke, and looked down. Oh crap, she thought, no hiding it now.

Chuny was still watching her. 'Neela…'

'Yeah, I know.'

At that moment, once the patient was stabilised, Ray took his attention off the action for an instant, and looked over at his wife. All that struck him at first was that she was standing away from the gurney, looking a little clueless. Her hands, still sporting a pair of bloody gloves, were clutching her great dome of a stomach and Chuny was at her elbow, supporting her. Then his eyes travelled down and he saw the wet stain spread slowly down her scrubs.

She met his eyes a touch guiltily, admitting that he had been right.

He rushed to her side. 'Neela, oh my God, are you… Your waters have broken. You're still three weeks early. You're –'

Turning briefly to smile her thanks at Chuny, Neela drew Ray over to the corner of the room. 'Ray, love, calm down. Yes, I am in labour. Yes, I should have said something. Yes, I should have given up work when you told me to. But it's going to be fine, now could you please help me into an exam room before the next contraction – arghh.' She was cut off by another round of pain, and she clutched Ray's hands, squeezing his fingers tightly.

Finally, the doctor part of his brain overtook the concerned father and panicky husband side, and, once the contraction has passed, he supported her carefully around the waist, bending so she could put an arm around his neck. 'Come on, let's get you lying down.' As he helped her into the next room, he called over his shoulder. 'Morris, are you all right here until someone else from surgery comes downstairs?'

'I've got it man. Don't worry about this.'

'Thanks. Can someone send Cath in to us please.' Catherine Hall was the fourth attending, and had been at County for some time, having started as an R3 around the time Ray returned to Chicago. Out of everyone in the ER she probably had the most OB experience since Abby left.

'Sure thing, I'll go find her,' Chuny offered.

A few minutes, and another contraction, later, Neela was out of her blood drenched scrubs and wearing a gown, settled in an exam room. While they waited for Chuny to find Catherine, Ray held Neela's hand, stroking her skin with his thumb softly.

'Why didn't you say anything?'

'I'm sorry, I just didn't want you to worry. I was having a few twinges earlier on before I came down here, but they weren't anything much to worry about. Then as soon as the consult came, I rushed down here and got caught up in everything and…'

She looked so apologetic that his heart melted and he leaned over to kiss her furrowed brow, squeezing the hand he was holding. 'Hey hey, don't worry, it's fine. We'll let Cath have a look at you then we'll go upstairs. I'll get someone to call Hope and ask her to just keep Lily for a while longer.'

She smiled in gratitude at his support, and he grinned boyishly. 'I can't believe the next time we go home, we're going to have another baby.'

'I know. Oh Ray, I know.' There were tears in her eyes as the emotion overwhelmed her. She, even now, couldn't at times quite believe everything that had happened over the years. When she had seen Ray at the hospital after his accident, she had never felt so utterly devastated by anything as she had when she saw the look in his eyes when he had to be picked up from the wheelchair and lifted into bed. Maybe it was wrong, but it had given her an even bigger sense of crippling, all consuming grief than Michael's death. All through her own recovery and rehabilitation, all she had been able to think of was him, and that whatever pain she was going through, it was nothing compared to what she had made him suffer.

Even when he'd returned, it hadn't been easy, as they had known it wouldn't be. There had been some vicious arguments where he had only been half a step from leaving, and she had been tempted to let him. But somehow, every time, something always happened to remind them of what they were working towards, of how many opportunities they had missed, and why they shouldn't throw this one away. So they hadn't; they'd clung to it as tightly as they could, hoping and praying that some new tragedy wouldn't come along to sweep them away.

Now they were blissfully happy in their marriage, and would, very soon, have two children. Lily was nearly three years old now, and as bright as a button. She had coffee coloured skin, but Ray's hair and eyes. She was very intelligent, and had a mischievous streak that kept them on their toes, as well as this amazing smile and little giggle whenever she'd done something naughty that ensured she never got properly reprimanded for her misbehaviour. Parenting had been a rollercoaster adventure, but it had brought them even closer together. Those people who didn't know their history would never have guessed at it, although the more observant might notice that the bond between them was deeper and stronger than with most.

The door swung open, and Catherine came in, a look of concern on her face. 'What've you been doing Neela?'

'Umm, going into labour?' she offered wryly.

She shook her head disapprovingly. 'Ray was right you know, you should have gone home a fortnight ago when you nearly fainted.'

Catherine realised, a second too late to stop the words from coming out of her mouth, that she had just dropped Neela right in it. Ray hadn't been on that day, and judging by the utter horror on his face, Neela hadn't quite gotten round to mentioning it to him.

'_What_?' he thundered.

'Ray, it was nothing.' His stormy look told her without the need for words that he disagreed with her strongly. 'Cath, please tell him it was nothing.'

The death stare Neela gave her was enough to prompt the younger woman to say, 'it was umm, just a bit of a dizzy spell. Nothing to worry about Ray,' she added bracingly.

Leaving Ray to smoulder, knowing he'd get over it soon enough when the action really began to get going, Catherine went into doctor mode. 'Right then Neela, let's have a look and see how you're getting along. How far apart are the contractions now?'

'I think they're down to eight minutes,' she replied. Already Ray had calmed down, and was grasping Neela's hand again, stroking her forehead and murmuring words of encouragement.

'All right. Well, you're six centimetres dilated now, and things seem to be moving along quickly.' She paused while Neela endured another contraction. 'I'd be inclined to keep you down here if you don't mind. I don't think there's time to get you up to maternity comfortably.'

Neela looked to Ray for approval then nodded, biting her lip, still breathless from the agony she had been in. 'Okay, whatever you think best.'

'In that case, I'm going to page OB and get them down here. It's crazy out there, there's been some shoot out at a bar downtown and we're now at four GSWs and counting. I don't really have the time to…'

'That's fine,' Ray said. 'We'll be okay until OB gets here. You get back out there and do what you can. Oh, and page Carter, I know this is his first day off in forever, but he'll have to cover for me, tell him I'm sorry.'

Carter was at the cemetery. It was a warm day, but his hands were buried deep in his pockets, and he stalked along the path between the headstones with his head down, not taking in the stark beauty of the bright flowers against the dull stone.

He knew exactly where he was heading. He didn't come here often, and he never brought anything with him, doubtful that even his presence would be appreciated, let alone more than that. He stopped in front of a particular headstone.

_In loving memory of Millie Rubadoux _

_Rest in Peace. _

_Here lies also her husband _

_Jules Rubadoux _

The wording was brief, unflowery. Carter thought without smiling how unlike Mr Rubadoux something so short, with such brevity, was.

It was ten years to the day that he'd left County. Ten years was a long time, and although he'd done a lot of good there, he wasn't proud of everything he'd done. The Rubadouxs was probably what he was least proud of. In fact, he was pretty sure he would go as far as to say he was disgusted with himself for his behaviour. First of all, he took advantage of Ruby's trust in him to persuade Mrs Rubadoux to enter Vucelich's trial. Then he'd promised them the earth, well, a happy ending, but for a terminally ill patient they were one and the same, and allowed Vucelich, the damn liar that he was, to use her in his study as he saw fit. Then as soon as it became clear that his miracle cure wasn't going to have the slightest effect on her, Carter had bowed to his demands and shipped her off to a nursing home, still all the while trotting out silver tongued lies that everything was going to be just fine, even though by then, it patently was not. Then when they'd brought her back, this time to die, he'd carefully avoided them for as long as he could, feigning busyness and a detachment that even as a surgical student he did not feel, just so he didn't have to face his mistake, to hear the disappointment in the old man's voice as the sycophantic praise that had been ringing in his ears only weeks before turned to hurt and betrayal.

What's more, he hadn't even had the damn decency to turn up to her funeral on time.

When Jules Rubadoux had reappeared in the ER, right in his final weeks there, he committed perhaps his worst crime against him. He hadn't remembered. All he saw was a difficult old man who seemed to bear a powerful grudge against him. If Cardiothoracics were happy to take him off his hands, as they had appeared to be, then he was happy to let them. At first. Then Haleh had jogged something deep in his mind and he'd felt compelled to go and find out _exactly _why Mr Rubadoux couldn't even tolerate being in the same room as him. Reading over Mrs Rubadoux's notes, from all those years ago, a bitter taste crept into his mouth, and he'd been forced to revaluate his opinion of himself, facing a few home truths that he didn't much like.

As a surgical intern, he'd been constantly hungry for glory, eyes perpetually open to some way of securing a little more praise, a little more recognition, and he hadn't cared who he'd had to tread on to get it. His colleagues he would have stabbed in the back like a shot, expect Benton, and even then he couldn't resist showing him up a bit from time to time; Hell, he even stole the credit for a diagnosis for the Vucelich trial from his own girlfriend.

Harper had been appalled by what he did, even though she didn't shout and scream at him like she had every right to. She hadn't quite trusted him after that, he knew. He obviously wasn't quite the guy she had thought he was. He'd always wondered what on earth she saw in him anyway. She was attractive, in her slightly unconventional way, upfront and feisty, and great fun. All right, so she might not have been one of his greater loves, she was no Abby or Kem or even Lucy, but thoughts of her were enough to raise a bittersweet smile. Their relationship, once past the initial hiccup of Doug Ross, had been easy and uncomplicated in a way that many of his later ones were not. It was refreshing, sometimes, to look back on something so simple. They really had been just two young people, who liked each other and liked spending time together. In hindsight, it seemed like a better basis for a relationship than many others he had gotten into. Perhaps he should have tried harder, fought for her, kept in touch maybe, after she left for Dallas.

The Rubadouxs and Harper weren't the only people he hadn't done right by. A collection of faces flashed through his mind. The patient with the throat tumour that he had _known _needed a pysch consult, but was too blinded by Anspaugh's offer to assist on the operation to insist upon it. The man had died of a stroke post-op while he and Anspaugh were out celebrating a "successful" surgery. Then there was Dennis Gant, fellow intern and flatmate. He'd died while Carter had been trying to avoid him, not wanting to listen to his whinges and moans about Benton. Oh, there were plenty. Patients, friends, family.

He liked to think though, that he was different now. He wasn't sure when exactly the change began, but he thought he could pinpoint it to when he left surgery and switched his internship to the ER. The ER wasn't the power hungry, glory seeking old boy's club that there was upstairs. In the ER, the only thing that mattered, the only thing that got you any recognition at all, and even then you never had the time to bask in it, was saving lives. The ER, and his greatest mentor, Mark Greene, had taught him to be the doctor, and the person, he was today.

And if it was John Carter, Surgery, that had done wrong by the Rubadouxs, and others, back then, it was John Carter, ER, that had to atone. He couldn't bring Mrs Rubadoux back to life, or erase that disgusted, betrayed look from Harper's eyes, but Mr Rubadoux had gone to his grave not only later than he would have done had Anspaugh and Kayson got their hands on him, but with the peace of having been told the truth, something he had deserved from the beginning but received ten years too late.

It wasn't much, but it would have to do. That's why, every single day, he worked a little bit harder, gave a little bit more of himself, to help people. That's what it was all about.

Then, as if on cue, his pager went off. Looks like he'd managed to make himself so damn indispensable, he couldn't even have a day off. The corners of his lips twitched into a smile though. He didn't mind.

Harper followed Doctor Williams, and a nurse, Becca, into the exam room they had been told to go to. Doctor Williams did the introductions. 'Neela, Ray, this is Harper Tracy, she's our new Chief up on OB.'

They smiled. 'Nice to meet you,' Neela said. Ray was now fully in his panicky father mode – he'd completely lost it when she'd had Lily as well – and no longer possessed the wits to shake the proffered hand.

'Likewise. I hear you went into labour in the middle of a procedure.' Harper began to strike up a conversation as she started her examination.

'Well, I went into labour _before _the procedure really. It's not easy to clamp a femoral artery in between contractions. Luckily my waters held off until I was done.'

'Dedication, I like it,' Harper grinned, instantly liking her fellow doctor. 'Now, how long are the contractions apart?'

'Down to six now. They're speeding up quite rapidly. They were eight when you were paged, and that wasn't all that long ago.'

'No, you're right, it wasn't. Looks like someone is eager to be out in the big wide world. First baby?'

'Second,' Neela replied. 'We've got a little girl already, Lily. She's nearly three.'

'Lovely, how does she like the idea of a little brother or sister?'

'I think she just wants mummy to stop being so fat so she can cuddle her properly again. That's what she told me the other day. Apparently my hugs aren't as good anymore.'

A little later on, and Neela's relaxed attitude had evaporated somewhat. Ray, content to leave the obstetrics team to their work, was at the head of the bed, holding her hand and stroking her forehead lovingly. He hated seeing her in so much pain. Carefully, he brushed a damp tendril of black hair out of her eyes.

The contractions were now much quicker, and the intensity of pain was clearly greater. She cried his name desperately.

'It's okay,' he reassured her with a smile. 'I'm right here, I'm right beside you.'

'Go to Hell,' she screamed. 'Don't you bloody smile at me Ray Barnett. You wouldn't be smiling if you knew how much pain I was in, you bloody wanker.'

After fleeting consideration, he came to the swift conclusion that it was not in the interests of his personal safety to point out to her that if he was a wanker, they probably wouldn't be in the position they were now.

He settled with a simple, 'I'm sorry,' and tried to rearrange his features into an expression that didn't elicit another attack of pain driven wrath.

'All right Neela, you're doing well. When the next contraction comes, I want you to push, okay?' Harper said.

Neela nodded, biting her lip. She panted heavily, trying to get her breath back a bit before the agony began again. She looked to Ray for encouragement.

He bent to kiss her hot forehead. 'It's all right babe, it won't be much longer now. You be brave for me.'

When the next contraction hit her, Neela leaned forward and pushed as hard as she could, letting instinct and her body take over. Ray put a supporting arm around her shoulders and kept talking to her.

He glanced up at the far end of the bed just then, and their sudden silence told him something was wrong. He felt Neela tense up and knew she'd noticed too. 'What?' he asked, trying not to, in his fear, grip at her shoulders too tightly. 'What is it?'

'Nothing to worry about,' Harper said, 'the baby is presenting in a breech position, that's all. Just a little bit more work for everyone I'm afraid.'

As soon as he heard the word _breech_, he felt a horrible, sinking feeling descend on him that swiftly developed into an almost overwhelming sense of nausea. He had delivered plenty of babies, even a couple of breech births, but every time, he couldn't stop a terrible flashback to the time when he had just become an R2, so many years ago now, when that baby who had presented breech had ended up brain damaged through lack of oxygen. The feelings he had experienced when he sat up all night in vigil had never left him, and he had a deep fear of it happening again which intensified tenfold now it was his own wife and own child. All he knew was that this time, he would try even harder to prevent it, and if he couldn't prevent it, he sure as Hell wouldn't be leaving his child in a hospital cot to live or die alone.

'Neela,' he began, 'perhaps if it's breech we should consider a c-section.'

'Ray, don't worry, it'll be fine. I don't need a c-section.'

The mother of that little boy had refused a caesarean, determined to have a natural birth. He knew he was being slightly irrational, but he couldn't help himself. It just seemed too reminiscent, and the knot of fear in his stomach was gripping tighter.

'_Neela_,' he said forcefully, 'I won't do anything to put our baby at risk. I just won't. If it's breech, then a c-section is quicker, easier, safer, a _lot_ safer. I think that –'

'If it comes to that, then so be it,' she replied, equally determined. 'But we're a long way off that yet. And I _most certainly _won't be putting the baby at risk myself, so don't you act like you're the only one who's worried Ray Barnett,' she snapped at him angrily.

Harper could see that there was a conflict arising and she did her best to head it off before it really got going. An argument wouldn't benefit either of them – they were clearly a very close couple and obviously relied on each other heavily. If they were going to get to the other side of this with a fit, healthy mum and baby, they needed to be working together.

'Calm down please, both of you. It's a simple, buttocks first breech presentation and at this stage, there is nothing to worry about and nothing to suggest that a caesarean will be a necessary course of action. If I change my mind or events escalate, I promise you I will tell you right away, and you can make any decisions then. For now though, I need another big push from you on your next contraction Neela.'

She gave Ray a no-nonsense look, and, sensing that she wouldn't lie to them, or that she wouldn't have any qualms about throwing him out if he began to upset Neela, he let it go. Biting his lip anxiously, he gripped her hand a little tighter though.

Harper turned out to be right. After only ten more minutes of agonising contractions, Neela sank back into Ray's arms, exhausted, as a lusty cry filled the room.

'Congratulations, you've got a baby boy.' The cord was cut, and with a smile, Harper placed the baby in Neela's waiting arms. Her tears of pain had already become ones of joy and she gazed down on her son lovingly.

'Oh Ray,' she whispered.

Ray was too choked to be able to say anything at all. Blinking back tears of his own, of relief and elation, he kissed her hair, then bent to plant his lips softly on his son's forehead. Eventually, he managed to squeeze out, 'I love you Neela, I love you so much,' but that was all for a while.

Once they had had their first hold, Harper took the baby back for a short time, to check everything was okay, and helped Neela pass the afterbirth. When she was satisfied all was in order, she passed their new son back to them, and stepped back, not able to stop smiling. It always made her grin from ear to ear whenever she delivered a baby, and she felt enormously privileged to be privy to such love and emotion. She invariably felt a rush of pride that she had done something to help that process.

'Right, I'm going to leave you two to it. I'll try to find you a bed in maternity as soon as I can, and in the meantime, if there's anything at all that you need, just page me, okay?'

'We will,' Neela said. 'Thank you so much for what you did, and it was very nice to meet you. Good luck with the job, I think you'll be fantastic. It'll be a hard task replacing Doctor Coburn, but I can't think of anyone better suited to it than you.'

She wasn't offering false praise. From the moment Doctor Tracy, with her line of earrings and warm smile, walked into the room and was introduced, Neela had felt completely at ease and instinctively knew that she and her baby were absolutely safe in her care.

'Thank you.' Harper was touched by the other woman's words. She liked this couple very much, and was happy to think that they were her colleagues. There was something about them that intrigued her a little as well. Working in medicine, you learnt to recognise a certain look about people who had worked hard to overcome incredible suffering, and were the stronger for it. Both Ray and Neela, to her, had that look, residing deep in their eyes. Whatever had happened to them to put it there, she had rarely seen more thrilled new parents.

When she was gone, Ray turned his undivided attention to Neela and the baby. Just as when Lily was born, these first few moments made him feel so… He felt like his heart was going to overflow with love, there was no other way of putting it.

Neela was now looking up at him expectantly, and he had a feeling she had asked him a question.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'What was that?'

'Have you had any more thoughts on what we're going to call him?' she repeated. They'd already decided, if the baby was a boy, his middle name was going to be Archie, which they felt was a fitting tribute to the friend who had done so much for them. However, they didn't think they could quite handle Morris's inevitably vocal jubilation if they'd given the child Archie as a first name, so they had settled on it as the middle name. They hadn't come to a conclusion at all on anything else though, so there was still some thinking to do.

'Would you like to name him after your father?' he offered. Neela's father had died of a heart attack about a year ago, and even though to his dying day, Mr Rasgotra had scared the living daylights out of him, he thought Neela might want to remember her father in her son.

She frowned, thinking about it. 'I don't think so. He's already named after Morris, I want his first name to be just for him. Unless you want to name him after your father?' she offered, clearly as an afterthought.

He shook his head. 'I think you've generally got to have done something to deserve an honour like having a grandchild named after you.' Then he grinned wickedly. 'I guess your "name of his own" idea means Ray Junior is out then?'

'We're not calling him Ray Junior. One of you is quite enough thank you.' She quashed the idea swiftly, just in case he wasn't joking.

'We chose a western name for Lily, do you want an Indian one for this little one?'

'I don't know. Nothing has jumped out at me, either Indian or western. I'll know the right one when I hear it. Suggest a few names.'

'Umm… Something traditional like Edward? John? William? Charles?'

'Since when did we ever do anything traditionally? It's not very us, so it's probably not going to be very him either. It should be something that reflects who he is.'

The name Lily Abigail had come to them very quickly, with only the minimum amount of consideration required. This looked like it was going to be harder. 'All right, what about something a bit more out there, like Noah? Riley? Logan?' He stopped when he saw Neela's face.

'No, definitely not something like that.' She was looking down at their son thoughtfully, and he could tell that she was racking her brains as well.

He knew not to suggest anything too American, with her British background she had poked fun, on more than one occasion, of names that she wasn't familiar with. He was searching for something that might please her, when he saw the corners of her lips turn up into a smile and a satisfied look appeared in her eyes. He knew she'd found what she wanted.

'Jago.'

'Jago? I've never heard of that before. Is it Indian?'

'No, it's British, well, Cornish. I went to school with a guy called Jago when I was little, and I always thought it was an unusual name. It's the Cornish form of James apparently. What do you think?'

She looked up at him hopefully, her eyes wide in a mute appeal. He could see she had her heart set on that name, so he gave it some thought. It fulfilled all their name choosing criteria, he wouldn't be anyone's namesake, it was a simple, straightforward name that should grow with him over time. It was also a little offbeat, a Jago would stand out from the crowd. He decided he approved.

'It's good,' he answered eventually. 'I like it.'

'Really?'

He nodded. Neela smiled down at the baby again, and he reached out to stroke his tiny, perfectly soft cheek. 'Hello Jago,' she said gently. 'Welcome to the big wide world.'

Once she had finished in the ER with the Barnett birth, Harper had returned upstairs to her department, and started checking on bed availability. There must be something in the water at the moment, because it seemed like every woman in Chicago was giving birth; there wasn't a maternity bed to be had for what looked like a long time, even for one of the hospital's own attendings.

After that, she had accompanied Doctor Williams on rounds, introducing herself to the patients and getting more of a feel for the place. She enjoying meeting so many new people, and there were a couple of mildly interesting cases that she took a more active role in. She also spent some time simply wandering around observing, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, seeing how her staff worked and interacted with patients. On the whole, she was very impressed with what she saw, and by the end of her shift, felt absolutely certain that she had made a good decision when she had accepted this post.

When her shift, much later, came to an end, she decided, before she left, to pop down to the ER, where Neela Barnett was still waiting for a bed. She'd called down and spoken to Ray a couple of times to keep them updated on the bed situation, but she quite wanted to see them again. She was on a mission to make friends here in Chicago, and they had seemed interesting people.

A miserable looking guy at admit, who gave her what she assumed to be a rare smile when she asked after the whereabouts of Neela and the baby, directed her to a room in the Kerry Weaver wing. Her mouth twitched into a smile at that. Kerry Weaver, huh? Obviously that iron fist paid off.

Tentatively, she poked her head around the door. 'Can I come in?'

Neela smiled widely. 'Doctor Tracy, yes, of course.'

'Harper, please.' She stepped into the room. 'How are you getting on?' Sitting on Neela's lap was a beautiful little girl of about three years who she decided was definitely their elder daughter, and Ray was holding the baby. She smiled widely at what looked like the perfect family scene.

'Everything is fine, I want to go home, but,' Neela shot a rebellious look at her husband, 'someone won't let me. So I guess we're still waiting on a bed.'

'One must be coming up soon, you shouldn't have to hang around for too much longer,' she reassured.

'I hope so,' Ray laughed. 'I don't think I can keep her here much longer if one doesn't.'

Harper smiled with them. 'Do you have a name for him yet?'

'Yes,' Neela answered. 'Jago.'

'Jago, unusual, but I like it.'

'Thank you. So, how has your first day at County gone? What did you think of the place?' Ray struck up conversation.

'I've had a really good day. I think it's going to be a challenge here, but I –' She was just about to tell them that today wasn't in fact her first day at County, that she had done some of her training here, but she was interrupted by someone else entering the room.

'Ray, Neela, how are you? I'm so sorry I haven't had a chance to come in sooner, but we've been getting slammed all day out there. Congratulations, I've brought you…' Carter was in the process of holding out a bunch of flowers and a little blue soft dog that he had bought in the gift shop when he suddenly realised there was another person in the room. If he hadn't been thinking of her earlier, he might not have recognised her instantly, but as it was, he knew her straight away.

'H-Harper?'

'_Carter._' She smiled a wide smile of recognition, and surprise shone in her eyes. 'You're never still here?'

'Long story,' he stuttered. 'But, what are you doing here?'

'I'm the new Chief of Obstetrics.'

Carter's gaze flitted briefly over her shoulder, to where he could see Ray and Neela looking on gleefully. They, along with Morris and Hope, had been trying to set him up with someone for a while now, but they hadn't been successful. Chuny was probably the closest he came. He had managed four dates with her, and got as far as her apartment before his courage failed him and he made his excuses, which was three dates and an apartment invite further than he got with Sam, Julia who was an attending up on NICU, or Sara Johnson, a rather beautiful realtor (way out of his league, in his opinion) who Neela had met on the El one morning and somehow managed to set him up on a blind date with.

All of them, even Chuny and Sam, who knew him well enough to know what he had been through, had just not been right. Chuny and Sam knew too much, he guessed, which left great gaping holes in the conversation when subjects arose that they assumed he wouldn't want to talk about, and Julia and Sara hadn't known enough, hadn't known that asking a simple question like, do you have any siblings, or do you have any children, was likely to rip a large and ragged hole in his heart.

Harper though, that could be different. She knew him, knew enough of his family to know not to ask, but she hadn't seen him suffer through the worst of his angst. She wouldn't have the fear of Chuny and Sam, or the curiosity of Julia and Sara.

Ray and Neela were still looking from one to the other. 'Do you two know each other?' Ray asked.

'Yes,' Harper replied, not feeling quite as casual as she sounded, 'we were students here at County together.'

'You used to work here?'

'A long time ago now, eighteen years actually. I left to go to Dallas for an OB rotation.'

While they were talking, Carter took the opportunity to take a proper look at her. She didn't look like she had changed a bit; she was still petite and blonde, with her offbeat prettiness, and still the line of earrings up her ear that drove Weaver mad and he used to secretly love, even though it was so far from what he knew he should like, with his money and expectations. She didn't look anything like as old as logic told him she must be – they were the same age, but he had a touch of grey at the temples, and a face lined by angst and sun. She looked as young as she always had.

For some odd reason, his eyes were drawn back to her ears. He knew he was staring at the earrings, but he couldn't not. She was wearing a line of tiny silver studs, a couple of them with what looked like diamonds in, much more conservative than in her student days, except the very bottom pair. They were a pair of elegant, simple diamond drops that somehow looked familiar… Then he realised where he'd seen them before.

'I like your earrings,' he said with a grin.

One of her hands flew to her ear, as if to remind herself what earrings she was wearing. Slowly, a smile – and a blush – spread over her face. 'Oh, they were a Christmas present,' she replied.

'1995 by any chance?' he asked with an arched eyebrow, a secret glint in his eye. Was he flirting, he wondered. Did he even know how to flirt anymore?

'You know, I think it might have been.'

He knew their little audience had not missed the implications of the conversation. Pointedly ignoring their inane grins – thank goodness Harper had her back to them, and couldn't see – he stepped forward to lay the gifts he had brought on the end of the bed, before turning back to Harper.

'I, umm… don't suppose you'd like to grab a coffee or something, would you? It would be good to catch up.'

'Well, I would,' she said slowly, then returned his grin. 'But as it is gone eight o'clock, I would say it's more time for dinner than coffee.'

'We had better make it dinner then.'

He held the door open for her, then, just before he left, turned back to Ray and Neela, and pointed at them, his eyes narrow. 'Don't you pair think just because you've got two dependents now, I won't kill you if you don't keep your mouths shut.'

Then his face broke into a smile and they could see a happiness in his eyes that they hadn't witnessed for many years. 'What's the story?' Neela asked.

'We used to date for a bit,' he sighed. 'A _long _time ago, so don't get any ideas.'

'Diamond earrings dated?'

'Yes, diamond earrings dated, and that's all I'm telling you. Understood?'

'Yes, Doctor Carter,' they both replied in mocking, sing song voices that made them sound about ten years old and him feel about a hundred.

He took her to a nice-ish place, a little Italian a few blocks away. Given his recent round of dating, he had been here a few times lately. The proprietor, a fast moving, fast talking old guy called Luigi, hurried to them when they came in the door. 'Doctor Carter, good evening. A table for yourself and the signora?'

'Thank you Luigi.' He gently put his arm under Harper's elbow to escort her to the table that Luigi led them to. When they were seated, napkins expertly flicked onto their laps by the active little waiter, Harper gave him an arch look.

'Come here often do you? Has Doctor Carter brought many signoras here?' There was a sparkle in her eye and he could tell she was teasing him.

'Oh, all the time. A different signora every day of the week,' he joked.

They chatted easily as they worked their way through the menu, catching up on old times, filling each other in on a few of the details of their lives over the last years. As they were talking, he found himself surreptitiously glancing at her left hand for a wedding ring. He wasn't sure exactly why, but he felt he wanted to know.

He didn't think she'd caught him looking, but the conversation gradually worked its way round to marriage. She'd been telling him about her time in LA, and after describing her job there, the city, she added, 'And that's where I met my husband.'

He choked a little on his mouthful of gnocchi at her casual tone. 'You're married?'

'Not any more,' she shook her head.

'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.' He wasn't, actually, though he tried not to make the lie too obvious. 'What happened, if you don't mind me asking?'

'No, not at all,' she mumbled through a healthy forkful of spaghetti. 'It's not a terrible story or anything. He was called David, and he was an accountant. He was lovely really, very good and kind, but he didn't understand the meaning of a job that wasn't nine to five, and all he really wanted was a wife who would give him dinner on the table at six o'clock and a tribe of perfect little children.'

Carter laughed out loud at the impromptu image that popped into his mind of Harper as some sort of Stepford wife. 'I can't imagine that being very you,' he said. 'Unless you've changed a _lot._'

'No, it wasn't the life I wanted at all. Work comes first, it always has. I guess I simply didn't love David enough to be persuaded otherwise.' She smiled brightly, to show she wasn't upset or bitter about her failed marriage. These things happen sometimes. 'What about you?' she asked. 'No ring.'

If he hadn't been so shocked that she'd been looking for a wedding ring as well, her offhand little comment might have made his day. 'I'm not married,' he answered, carefully masking the pain in his eyes that that line of questioning induced. 'Never quite got round to it.'

Harper sensed there was a story there, something, maybe even more than one thing, that made him go like that, so still and anguished, when she began to ask him deeper questions about himself. She knew him well enough, despite the time that had passed, to know that there was nothing he would hate more than if she began to pry. She couldn't deny she was curious, but if he was to tell her, she knew it would be in his own time, on his terms.

She tried to steer the conversation away from relationships. 'So, have you really been at County all these years then?'

'Mostly,' he answered, feeling the constriction in his throat ease a little as she moved the conversation on from what was so clearly a sensitive point. 'I spent a few years doing humanitarian work, mainly in Africa; I've spent a while in Darfur, the Congo, the Cape Town and Johannesburg slums, but other places as well, Indonesia, post-tsunami, Northern Queensland in Australia, with the Aborigines.'

Harper thought as he listed the places that he had chosen what must be some of the starkest, hardest places in the world, where some of the most severe suffering occurs. You either had to be truly and in every way selfless to want to do that, and the Carter she remembered certainly wasn't that, or else you had to be looking for something.

She watched him in silence for a long time. She could see in those velvet brown eyes of his the signs of a battle with some inner demons that although she had seen the signs of before, last time, they had never been so omnipresent, with such intensity. She wondered what had happened to him that made him like that.

'Did you find what you were looking for?' she asked.

Carter started a little at her question. How did she know he had been looking for something when it was only in hindsight, since he had found it at County, that he realised he had been searching at all.

'No, I didn't. But then I came back to County and I found it here.'

'Good, I'm glad.' She wanted to ask what it was, but she felt it might be pushing him too far.

She returned to her spaghetti, now gone slightly cold, forgotten in the intensity of their conversation, when he suddenly said, 'Hope, hope, and a sense of belonging. That's what I was looking for.'

And as she fixed her bright blue eyes on him, curious but not in any way judgemental, he told her his story, all that had happened to him since she left, leaving out all the insignificant things that he usually used to create a story of his past, and only throwing in the things that had really mattered, the things that answered her unspoken question.

Lucy. Abby. Kem, and the disasters associated with each one. They all came tumbling out, one after the other, and unlike the time he had told Aimée, now there were no tears, no overblown emotion from unhealed wounds. In fact, it didn't sound quite as pathetic or self pitying as it did in his head. It sounded sad, yes, but perhaps not beyond all hope.

The look she gave him, sympathetic but not in any way pitying, told him he might have found his path to redemption.

They were in his car. They had been all talked out after that, not wanting to waste words on trivialities after something so deep, so important, and had spent the rest of the meal in a companionable silence. Every now and then, Harper caught his eye, trying to give him a little smile, enough to let him know that she wasn't going to run a mile as soon as the check was paid.

Once they were done, he offered to drive her home, and she accepted. She had directed him to her apartment, and now he had just pulled to a halt outside. He noted it was only a few blocks from his own.

'Thank you for dinner Carter.' She placed her hand over his, resting on the gearstick, and gave it a gentle squeeze. 'It was good to see you again.'

'And you,' he said, unsure of what else he could say. He didn't want to scare her by telling her he hadn't felt so comfortable with someone and enjoyed someone's company so much for more years than he cared to remember.

She had just opened the car door when he realised he had to say _something _else. 'Umm, Harper, I only live a few blocks from here, I don't suppose you want a lift to work tomorrow, do you?'

She smiled, a slow, soft smile that he felt warm him from the inside. The ice around his heart that he had begun to doubt would ever melt suddenly cracked, and as the light of the streetlight caught in the diamonds, _his _diamonds, in her ears, and danced in her eyes, he felt it start to thaw.

'I'll see you at seven.'


	12. Corday and Missed Opportunities

Disclaimer: As before

Author's Note: Sorry I've kept you waiting for a new chapter of this story. I have been working on a Doug and Carol chapter, but I'm leaving that one for now because I need to think up a song to use (please have a look at my profile for a description of what I'm looking for, and please please please PM me if you have any ideas) and also because it's the final chapter, and I know I haven't been doing these in order at all, but I decided the last one should come at the end. As for the next chapter, I have an idea for a Gates one, well, I have two ideas – a chapter in which he is redeemed, and one in which he is not. Personally, I'm always in favour of redemption for disliked characters in anything, but I'm not sure if it would be too clichéd in this instance. What do you think? Thank you for all the reviews for the last chapter, and please keep them coming. Oh, and in this chapter, please take the cemetery scenario with a pinch of salt – I'm quite sure Michael Gallant and Robert Romano are _not _buried in the same cemetery, but it works here, so…This chapter, by the way, is set between the Ray and Neela chapter, and the Katey one. (Oh, and I'm holding the next chapter of Back to the Beginning hostage until I get a few more reviews for the last one – come on, I know you can do better than two.)

Elizabeth Corday stretched out her legs – the joys of flying business class – and accepted a gin and tonic from a passing stewardess. Her ten year old daughter, Ella, was sitting next to her, already with headphones tucked firmly into her ears and immersed in some ridiculous pre-teen movie even though they'd only been in the air for about ten minutes. Elizabeth plugged in her own headphones and scanned through the music channels, settling for some soft, relaxing blues tunes.

They were on their annual pilgrimage back to America, to Chicago to be specific. She returned every year. She always organised it well in advance so Rachel could make sure she was in town when they were there, so she could spend some time with Ella. Elizabeth could now see that Mark's last days in Hawaii with Rachel had paid off; instead of the messed up, troublesome teenager she had once been, she was now, eventually, a confident balanced young woman. After plenty of deliberation, she had chosen to go to Art College and having recently taken an interest in psychology, was hoping to become an art therapist. Elizabeth usually left the two of them to themselves – Rachel was good with Ella and in recent years, since Ella had been a little older, the two of them had really bonded, which pleased Elizabeth in spite of herself. She knew Mark would have been delighted to see the closeness of his two daughters.

She would then make the most of the time she had to herself to go and visit Mark's grave. The three of them would usually go together initially, then Rachel would take Ella off and leave Elizabeth to arrange some flowers and say the things she felt the need to. Unbeknownst to them, she would then slip off to another grave that was also in the city, and do the same there, before meeting up with the girls again in the evening for dinner.

After that, she would sometimes call up old friends in the city, and meet for coffee or lunch, but in all honesty, there wasn't many people around that she had much of an interest in seeing. Since Kerry Weaver had moved to Miami, she had often taken Ella down to Florida, and incorporated a visit to her with the obligatory Disneyland holiday, but that was as much out of finding something to do as any real desire to stay in contact with people.

She rarely spent more than three or four days in America though. It was a different part of her life, over and done with now, and although at times, she wished she could go back to the chaos of County, just to feel that sense of belonging again, she knew she never could.

She worked now in a private surgery clinic that her father had set up in London. He was nearing retirement, and she would be taking over from him soon. Instead of the endless round of patching up GSWs, appendectomies, and the usual cases that were referred upstairs from the ER every day, her life now comprised largely of non-emergency, but very technical procedures, kidney transplants, quite a few high profile sports injuries, some cosmetic work; not surgery for the sake of it, they didn't do any of that, but they did quite a lot of skin graft work for burns victims, things like that. It was a lot more challenging and stimulating work to be honest, but it wasn't quite the same as County, there was no adrenaline rush, no drama, but she did enjoy it. She had worked hard and earned herself the respect she knew she deserved, and besides, it was extremely lucrative.

Personally, her life was also going well. Three years ago, she had met Charles Peters through his brother, Nick, with whom she happened to be having a fling at the time. Nick had just been a brief affair, nothing significant for either of them, but as soon as she had met his brother, she had known that he was different. Charles had all the charm and intelligence of his twin brother, but was completely without the arrogance that used to irritate her about Nick. She knew, being a surgeon, she wasn't without a healthy share of arrogance herself, so it was not a quality she looked for in a partner.

He'd asked her out for dinner there and then, right in front of his brother, and when a quick glance at Nick told her that he didn't mind – they'd never said they were exclusive – she'd accepted his invitation. She'd been expecting him to take her to somewhere posh and dressy, so she'd got a shock when he'd bought two portions of fish and chips and sat on a bench on the South Bank and watched the city go by. Despite her embarrassment at wandering the streets of the city in a black sparkling cocktail dress and an insubstantial shawl compared to Charles' jeans and casual shirt, she thought it might have been one of the best dates she'd ever been on. He'd made her laugh until she'd cried, then laughed at her as she tried to wipe away her running mascara with hands all greasy from the fish and chips. It had been the last thing she'd expected from an apparently cultured, affluent man like Charles, but that was what had made it so perfect.

For their second date though, they'd gone out for dinner properly, to a restaurant, and it was there that she'd really gotten to know him. He was a lecturer in finance at the London School of Economics, and had formerly been a stockbroker before, he said, he'd hankered after a less chaotic lifestyle. He professed not to have any hobbies, but after a little more conversation, she drew out of him a confession of a love of cricket, which struck her an endearingly old-fashioned.

What drew her most to him was that he'd lived in America; he'd married a girl from New York and moved there to be with her, so he entirely understood the difficulties of a transatlantic life, of not quite fitting in in either your own country, or your adopted one, with each thinking you belonged to the other, and yourself stuck somewhere in between. She'd asked then, after the fleeting mention of his wife, how long he'd been divorced, noticing too late the wedding ring still on his finger, and he'd fixed his breathtaking green gaze on her and said, 'I wasn't divorced.'

She could tell from his expression that he wasn't telling her that he was still married, and she felt she had touched a nerve. 'I'm sorry,' she said, looking away.

'Don't be. 9-11,' he replied simply. 'I was lucky, Christina wasn't. It was a long time ago, and the pain… lessens. But I think you know that.' The enigmatic smile he'd given her then had been lighter, and the tense moment passed.

'Either you're extremely perceptive, or your brother has been talking about me.'

'The latter,' he answered. 'I have the intuition of a teaspoon, and Nick has a big mouth.' She had found herself laughing. 'He was a doctor as well, your husband, wasn't he?'

'Yes. He died of a brain tumour nine years ago. You're right, the pain lessens.'

'You never stop missing them though,' he'd added.

'No, you don't,' she agreed, thinking of Mark's boyish smile and big heart.

After a few more dates, including a day at a cricket match – the first time he'd met Ella – they had acknowledged that what they were embarking on could be something more serious than either of them had entered into for quite some time. He made her feel something that she didn't quite remember, but was sure it was something similar to what she had felt for Mark once, a long time ago, before the angst and the arguments kicked in.

Then, eight months ago, they were married. The ceremony had been at a traditional country house, well outside the city, with only their very closest family in attendance. It had been exactly how they had wanted it however, and they had since settled into married life well, despite both of them being seriously out of practise at it. Ella adored him; she had been very young when Mark had died and Elizabeth knew she had missed a paternal influence in her life. She hoped the presence of Charles would help prevent her descending the same slippery slope that Rachel had embarked on in her early teenage years.

He understood the need she had to return to America every year. For the first time this year, now they were married, she had asked him if he wanted to accompany them, but he had simply thanked her for the offer, but America wasn't a country he ever wanted to step foot on again. She'd tried, gently, to persuade him otherwise, but he'd told her that she should be thankful she had a grave to visit, and she'd heard his bitter tone and left it at that. They were only going to be away for a few days after all, and although they were still in that newly wedded bliss stage where they were reluctant to let each other out of their sight, Elizabeth was sure they'd survive such a brief separation. She hoped that in time Charles would be able to come with her on one of her pilgrimages, but she understood if he didn't want to. She thought if she'd lost a loved one in circumstances like that, she'd never be able to recover as well as Charles had.

Just then, Ella, who appeared to have torn herself away from the miniature movie screen, tapped her on the arm and looked up at her imploringly. 'Mum, can you tell me a story about Dad please? Tell me again what he was like.'

She did this every year. When she was much younger, and didn't really understand why they had to get on a plane and go and stand at a usually cold, wet graveside, Elizabeth had always told her stories, all the way to Chicago, of what her daddy used to be like and the things he used to do. Now she was older, she knew what was going on, but she liked the stories, even though she'd heard them all a thousand times and always demanded at least a couple of anecdotes for the sake of tradition.

Putting aside her own thoughts and emotions, Elizabeth smiled at her daughter and started telling her, once again, of how her father saved lives.

Elizabeth Corday was on her way to Chicago, but when she arrived there, she would not be the only British surgeon in the city. Neela Rasgotra was revelling in both herself and Ray having a rare afternoon together off work, and she was determined to make it special.

It was nearly a year since he had reappeared in Chicago, and her life had changed utterly, once again. They had known that it wouldn't be easy, but she never would have guessed that it would be this bloody hard. At the very beginning, they had been so caught up in the wonder of seeing each other again, of realising all the dreams that had seemed so unlikely of ever being achieved, and they had been so blissfully happy that nothing ever seemed painful or difficult, and beyond the necessary apologies and explanations, they hadn't harked back to the past.

Gradually though, the honeymoon period had worn off, and the day to day realities of living with a disabled person, one who hadn't quite forgiven you for the loss of his legs, had begun to sink in. Ray, although he was coping marvellously with his prosthetics, still had the occasion relapse into pain and frustration, and Neela found it impossible not to reach out and try to help him.

That was what got him really angry. He was proud, and the idea of anyone having to give him physical assistance, even something as simple as bending down to pick something off the floor that had inadvertently been dropped, had a tendency to make him lose his temper in manner that bordered on the irrational. Anything could set it off, a busy shift at work, a look of curiosity or sympathy from a stranger in the street, and he would be tense, on edge, and then any little incident would suddenly get blown out of all conceivable proportion.

Every time he shouted at her, he was always so sorry, so loving afterwards, that she invariably forgave him, knowing that if it hadn't been for her in the first place, they would never be in this position. But although it terrified her to admit it, Neela knew the arguments were getting more frequent, more vocal, more… damaging. It was as if, with every new incident, a little bit of who they were and what they meant to each other was eroded, and it became more difficult, each time, to claw their way back from it.

Today was about getting it all back again. As incapable of cooking as she ever was, but not wanting to put the burden of being chef yet again onto Ray, Neela had followed a recipe book word by word, and to her enormous pride, had produced a delicious looking lunch of garlic chicken and mushroom risotto.

He was already sitting up at the table, and she brought the food through. Ray saw the grin of pride plastered all over her face, and smiled back at her.

'This smells amazing,' he complimented her. 'I can't believe you actually cooked it.'

'Hey,' she said, with mock outrage, 'you be nice about my cooking, or you don't get fed today.'

As she placed the plates on the table, he reached out and held her wrist, pulling her a little ungracefully onto his lap. 'Thank you for all this Neela.' He kissed her gently, and gave her a look of pure love that made her forget all the fights in an instant. 'You didn't have to do this, but I love it that you have. And I love you.'

She kissed him back, a lingering, sensual kiss that reminded both of them why they were still working at this, and hadn't given up months ago. 'I love you too.'

He let her go back to her seat, and as they started eating, he began to talk. 'I'm sorry I've been such a shit recently.'

She wanted to reassure him, tell him that he hadn't been, or that she didn't mind, but they had promised to be honest with each other, and to make out that all this was okay would be a lie. They both knew it wasn't.

'I haven't meant to be, but coming back to Chicago has been more difficult than I thought it would be. The ER has changed, with Abby, Luka and Pratt gone it doesn't feel like the same place I left, and I guess I'm angry at myself for staying away for so long. I feel like I've missed out… on so much. I get frustrated that I can't get that time back. I get frustrated that I can't do things like I used to,' he explained.

'I know, I really do,' she said. 'What I've been through isn't the same I know, but I spent the better part of a year recuperating after my accident, and during that time, I as good as became a hermit. I hated going places and seeing people. I blamed myself for everything that happened, and all I could think was that everyone else blamed me and hated me too.'

'I wish I'd known what was going on here. I think we could have helped each other,' he said thoughtfully.

'What I think is important,' Neela replied, 'is that we help each other now. I never really expected to see you again, and when you appeared that evening, I felt like my whole life was worth living again. I don't want to throw that away.'

He reached across the table to take her hand, stroking her wrist with his thumb just as he had the night in the warehouse. 'Neither do I Neela.'

After that, they ate in a comfortable silence for a while. He complimented her again on the meal, and teased her that he'd never thought she had had it in her. Then their peace was shattered by the shrill ringing of the telephone.

Neela was in the middle of pouring them another glass of wine so it was Ray who got up to answer it. Unable to change the settings, the answering machine on their phone happened to cut in after only half a dozen rings, so they always had to hurry to get there in time. He hurried a little too quickly though, and got one of his prosthetics caught in the leg of the chair, which he hadn't managed to push out from under the table sufficiently.

Neela watched, horrified, as in slow motion, Ray's leg twisted and he fell heavily to the floor. He gave a shout of pain and she dropped the wine bottle, rich claret liquid flowing over the white tablecloth and hurried to his side.

By the time she reached him, he was already sitting up.

'Are you all right?' She laid a hand on his arm.

Instantly, he shrugged her away. Over in the corner, the answering machine clicked in, and Morris' voice began to fill the room. 'Hey guys, sorry, I know you're both off and you're probably having some "alone time" but there's been a scaffolding collapse on a construction site and we're going to get hit with at least…'

'For God's sake Neela,' Ray shouted, 'answer the damn phone.'

She should have just done as he'd said in order to prevent the impending explosion, but his leg was still twisted beneath him, and he had a grimace of agony that she couldn't ignore. 'Oh, forget the phone, it's not important. Have you hurt yourself?'

'Were you not listening?' he asked angrily. 'It _is _important, there's been a bloody major incident. We have to get into work.'

The more he shouted, the more Neela found herself standing by her original action. 'You can't go into work like that. You've hurt yourself, you might even have broken your prosthetic.' She tried to help him to his feet, but he pushed her away roughly.

'Stop babying me Neela. I'm not an invalid, I can take care of myself.' He was trying to pull himself back up onto the chair, but even though his face contorted with the effort, the chair was too high for him to quite be able to make it.

'No you can't, look at you Ray. You can't even get onto a chair without help.' She heard her own voice getting louder as her temper rose within her chest. Why wouldn't he just let her help him?

He looked up at her with a vicious snarl that looked out of place on usually smiling face. 'Well, we all know whose fault that is, don't we?' In his struggles to pull himself up, he grabbed at the tablecloth, and brought everything, the candles, the vase of flowers, the meal that she had slaved over so lovingly, crashing to the floor in a disaster of noise, food and fire.

Neela felt his words hit her as hard as any slap. Even though she knew his words to be painfully true, she was angry too now, and spoiling for a fight. 'How _dare _you? I thought we were past this Ray.'

'_Past this? _I don't have any legs any more Neela. I'm never going to be _past this!_'

'Well, maybe you should be!'

Using the strength in his arms as well as leverage from his leg he hadn't hurt, he finally scrambled up onto the chair. In spite of the row; she was so used to them now they bounced off her to a certain extent, she took a step forwards, once again to try to help. She was stopped mid motion, by the icy cold glare he gave her.

'Fuck you!' he yelled back at her.

'I don't understand why you won't let me help you. I love you for God's sake. _Let me in, Ray._'

He threw his hands up in frustration. 'You know what, this isn't worth it anymore Neela. It's like you don't listen to a word I'm saying.' All their kind and forgiving words of earlier had been forgotten in the swirling carnage of yet another argument.

'Listen? _Listen?_' she screamed. 'How the Hell can I listen when you don't _talk _to me?'

They stared at each other for a long moment, a little breathless from their rage. Neela could see anguish in his eyes, but she didn't know how to reach out to him and make all the pain go away. The very thought that everything between them had come to this brought burning tears to her eyes.

When he eventually broke the silence, his voice had quietened down, but his tone was so distant and cold Neela felt fear grip at her heart like it never had before. 'Maybe I should just go, go back to Baton Rouge.'

She wanted so badly to say something to make everything all right, to make all this just go away, but she didn't think she could. Standing there, surrounded by the ruins of their romantic meal and troubled relationship, she thought with a pain in her chest worse than anything she had experienced under the stampede of people's panicked feet, that they had finally reached the end of the road.

She simply didn't see how they could get back from this. If had been only this one row, it might be different, but these bitter arguments were nearly daily occurrences now. It was as if everything they had once had dwindled and died in a fire of bitterness and anger.

Choking back her heartbroken sobs and taking an angry swipe at the one tear that betrayed her by rolling down her cheek, she stepped away from him. 'If that's how you feel Ray, then go. _Just go._'

Then she ran.

It was well into the afternoon by the time Elizabeth had finished at Mark's grave and handed Ella over to Rachel for the rest of the afternoon. They had arranged to meet again at five o'clock, which should give them plenty of time to get changed and ready to go out for dinner somewhere.

Now came the part of her annual pilgrimage she didn't tell people about. It struck her as odd that Rachel had never asked what she did in those hours between the girls leaving Mark's grave and them meeting again in the evening. She supposed she either assumed she spent the time still with Mark, or else enjoyed spending time with her half sister away from the wicked stepmother that she didn't care enough to ask.

Every year, after the girls were well out of sight, she would spend a little more time with Mark, but in some odd way, she didn't feel like she had the right to be there. She was his wife, the mother of one of his children, but she knew she wasn't _the one _for him. She wasn't entirely sure she believed in all that destiny nonsense, that everyone had their one soul mate, but if she'd ever seen two people that came close to proving the theory, it was Mark and Susan.

She'd known, through the edited version that Mark had told her, and the far less edited version she had gleaned from the hospital grapevine, that Mark and Susan had meant a lot more to each other than either of them had had the courage to admit, but it wasn't until Susan came back that she'd really had an insight into their closeness.

It was the fact that Mark hadn't told her that was the real giveaway. When she'd walked into the canteen to see them there, chatting away happily, some deep instinct had told her, from the way they talked to each other so comfortably, so easily, and from the unbridled happiness in Mark's eyes, that the blonde woman sitting at a table with her husband was Susan Lewis. He'd introduced them awkwardly, and she knew him well enough to hear the slight hint of guilt in his tone. He was usually so honest and straightforward that she knew from Mark himself that there was something wrong.

As far as she knew, nothing had happened between them, but she knew he must have turned to someone when she had walked out with Ella and at the same time as his tumour returned, and the only person it could have been was Susan. That he could tell his old flame and not his wife of his impending death hurt her more than any affair could have done.

In the eyes of the world, she had been every inch the grieving widow, and in many ways, she was; she had loved him and respected him, and felt the world had lost a good man when he'd died, but she didn't belong at his graveside and she knew it. It was a pretence she kept up for Ella and Rachel, that was all.

In the first few years she had returned, there had always been flowers on the grave. She'd asked Rachel once who may have put them there, but the girl had shrugged, not knowing. Elizabeth supposed it could have been Carter, but she didn't think so somehow. After a while though, the flowers had ceased and when, the following day, she'd had lunch with Kerry Weaver and heard the news that Susan had left County, she'd known for certain that Mark and Susan's bond had survived beyond death, whereas hers and Mark's had not.

So that was why she didn't linger at her husband's grave. Instead, she made her way across town, to a different cemetery, and visited a particular headstone that she felt sure wouldn't have any visitors other than herself.

Robert Romano was no-one's husband or father or lover or friend, so he did not have the loving, moving epitaph that was engraved upon Mark's headstone. Robert's was abrupt and to the point, just as he himself always had been.

_Here lies Robert Romano_

_Accomplished Doctor and Surgeon_

_Rest in Peace_

She herself, in the absence of anyone else who cared, had organised the headstone. She'd thought for a long time what to have put on it, but in the end she'd settled for those brief words, because anything else would have been a lie. He wasn't well liked, he wasn't leaving the world a better place, except for perhaps in the rather narrow field of robotic surgery, and he wouldn't even be missed by anyone.

Except her.

She and Robert understood each other. They both recognised in each other that constant striving, the need to be better, to do better, to perfect more procedures and to save more lives. They had missed a lot of chances, her and Robert, and if she'd had time again, she would have done things differently.

When he'd asked her out, back in the early days when she was still dating Benton, she might have said yes, and to Hell with her relationship with Peter. But then, she reflected, she would never have married Mark and she wouldn't have had Ella, and she couldn't regret anything to do with her daughter.

After Mark though, a relationship with Robert would have been more fulfilling, better for her, than her foolish fling with Fast Eddie. They might have ended up killing each other, it was true, but under the arguments, there had been a deep connection between them that Elizabeth thought neither of them had ever really had the courage to acknowledge.

She remembered after his arm was initially damaged in the helicopter accident, he was so angry with the world, so… frustrated. She'd wished there was something she could do, and in the end, he had let her help him, if only a little. He'd cut his injured arm just a little above the elbow, nothing serious, but with the reduced blood supply, it wasn't healing and, stubborn sod that he was, she'd found him in a darkened room, trying to dress it himself.

Part of her was surprised that he had let her take over, but she was glad that he had. Even now, she felt her heart constrict a little at the memory of the look in his eyes as he'd admitted that he would advise a patient in his position to consider a permanent surgical solution. He'd known that he was going to lose his arm, and that was the one time that he'd shown her, shown anyone she expected, just how much it was costing him emotionally.

If she'd have known then that his arm wasn't all he was going to lose, she would have said all the things she'd been keeping hidden, barely even considered. She supposed that she'd always assumed, eventually, they would finally admit that they were more than just colleagues and confront the issue they had been skirting around for so many years. Every day at work that she saw him was a chance she passed up, but she always thought there would be another one, a better one.

Then, one day, the chances ran out. She felt like a rug had been pulled out from underneath her when she had realised that under that ball of flaming wreckage in the ambulance bay was what remained of Robert Romano. She never had got the chance to tell him, and they had never got the chance to see if the spark that had always resided between them was capable of growing into something more.

What was worst of all though, even worse than the aching pain of an opportunity lost forever, was that no-one had come to his memorial service. _No-one. _Was he hated that much, she wondered. Did he really piss people off so much that they didn't even care to give him a decent send-off? Only Kerry had come, not to the service, but later, when she was out in the street standing before the tribute to all those who had died in the crash. It wasn't much, but at the time she'd counted it as something. That was before Kerry had taken Robert's legacy to the hospital and spent it on the damn "Robert Romano Center for Gay, Lesbian, Bi and Transgendered Healthcare". Elizabeth knew that it was actually a cause that Robert supported; he'd discussed funding for it with Weaver before, but to call the bloody centre that? She took it as an insult, although rationally, she was sure it wasn't meant as one.

When she came to Robert's grave, she didn't say anything – there was nothing to say – but she always carefully wiped away the year's worth of grass cuttings that had accumulated and stuck themselves to the headstone and put a few flowers in the vase. Her last year's flowers were always gone, probably frozen to nothing in the harsh Chicago winter, and there wasn't anyone else who would leave any, so she always chose something bright and colourful, thinking that even if only for a couple of weeks a year, it would look like someone cared.

She knew she should feel guilty that she spent more time here than at her husband's, but she couldn't quite bring herself to. If Susan had been Mark's missed opportunity, then perhaps Robert was hers. Now she would never know.

She was straightening up from arranging the flowers and preparing to leave when for some reason, on a scan of the cemetery, a figure standing a couple of hundred yards away caught her eye. She didn't know why, but her eye was drawn to her. She was too far away for Elizabeth to recognise, but she took a route to the exit that took her close enough to get a good look at her. Some sixth sense told her that she knew this woman.

As she approached, the slim female figure came into focus, and Elizabeth walked a little slower, trying to place where she remembered her from before she ran out of time and the pathway took her on past. The woman was petite and dark, thick, luxurious curls tumbling down over her shoulders. She was also dressed rather inappropriately for a cemetery, a dark blue jersey dress, not exactly evening or cocktail dress, but distinctly smart all the same, and a high heeled pair of shoes. Although there was a breath of spring in the air, it was by no means warm enough to be wandering around Chicago with no coat, as this woman was, and Elizabeth could see that she had wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep the cold out.

Then she placed her. She knew her from County, she wasn't a patient, but she didn't quite remember her as being a doctor either. A nurse? No, that wasn't it. A student? Yes, she had been a student. She was British, Elizabeth recalled, that was why she remembered her. She searched for a name. Rasgotra. Neela Rasgotra.

Confident of her identification, but less sure whether the younger woman would want to be disturbed in what was clearly a very private moment; she was standing before a grave, shoulders hunched over as if she was crying, and talking to the white slab of marble, she stepped towards her.

'Neela? Neela Rasgotra?'

Immediately, Neela's head snapped around to locate the source of the voice, and she hastily wiped away the tears that were streaming down her face. Not only was she surprised that anyone here knew her; it was her secret place, Pratt was the only other person in the entire city that had been to the funeral and so knew exactly where Michael was buried, but hearing the British accent threw her. Who else in Chicago did she know who was British?

Seeing the startled look on the other woman's face, Elizabeth smiled tentatively and took another step forwards. 'I'm sorry, I made you jump. Elizabeth Corday, I don't know if you remember…'

Finally, Neela came out of her reverie. 'Doctor Corday, hello, yes, of course I remember you. What are you doing here in Chicago?' she asked, before recalling that Doctor Corday had been married to the infamous Mark Greene, who had died a couple of years before she had arrived at County. 'I'm sorry, Neela added instantly. 'How insensitive of me, you must be visiting Doctor Greene's grave.'

Elizabeth considered lying for a second, but decided she had nothing to be ashamed of. 'I was, but I was here for Robert Romano.'

'Oh,' Neela said. In truth, she remembered Doctor Romano as being harsh and thoroughly disliked by all who knew him. She didn't want to insult the one person who appeared to care that he was gone but coming out with some insincere rubbish.

Elizabeth didn't want to pry, especially given the tears, but she was curious as to the other woman's presence. Knowing that Neela had no family in the city, she knew it must be a friend, possibly someone from County. 'If you don't mind me asking, what about yourself?'

Neela glanced back down to the headstone before answering the question. 'Do you remember Michael Gallant? He would have been an ER intern when you left.'

She trawled through the recesses of her memory, and came up with a face to place alongside the name. 'Yes, yes I do.'

'He and I were married, six years ago now. He was killed shortly afterwards in Iraq.'

'I'm sorry to her that.'

Neela smiled briefly, an acknowledgement of the sympathies offered.

Seeing that Neela's face was still damp with the moisture of her tears, Elizabeth rooted around in her bag for a packet of tissues and drew them out, offering one to the other woman. She accepted it gratefully.

'Thank you.'

'No problem. Is today an…anniversary or something?' Elizabeth enquired delicately.

'Umm, no, I come down here when I need to think, when I need someone to talk to. It sounds kind of crazy I know, but I always feel that Michael won't judge me like other people do.' She caught Corday's confused look. 'It's a long story,' she said. 'Not a very nice one.'

Then an earlier part of the conversation came back to Neela that she hadn't entirely registered the implications of. Doctor Corday might have been married to Mark Greene, but it was Doctor Romano's graveside that she was standing at on a cold March afternoon. What did that mean?

Hesitantly, she began to outline it. 'When I married Michael, I was living with another intern, Ray Barnett. We were just roommates and colleagues, but…' She let her voice trail off, but she knew the other woman understood what she was implying. 'We never acted on it, never. Then Michael died and I just couldn't bring myself to have anything to do with Ray. I'd been sitting at home falling in love with him while my husband was getting blown to smithereens by a roadside bomb.' Elizabeth winced at the starkness of the words.

'After that things got even more complicated. To cut a long story short, there was an accident, my fault, and Ray lost his legs. He went away, but he came back and we decided to give it a chance, but things have been too hard and they're all falling apart. He's at home packing his things now.'

As Neela relayed more and more of the story, the parallels rang through clearly. _British, married to someone else, colleagues, amputees. _It read like a checklist of similarities.

Suddenly, as she listened, Elizabeth experienced an overwhelming feeling. She didn't want Neela's story to end the same way hers had. She'd lived through it, and even though she was happy now, it had been hideous and lonely and she wouldn't wish it on anyone. She laid her hand on the other woman's arm, and looked down at her intensely.

'As long as he's still alive Neela, it can't be too late to tell him. I missed my chance. Don't make the same mistake I did.'

There was some knowing note in the other woman's voice that told Neela that this was someone who knew the pain, even more than she did, of lost opportunities. What would she do if a helicopter landed on Ray in the ambulance bay tomorrow, or the next truck did a better job of it? It sounded ridiculous, but she knew in that instant that if something like that happened, she'd just want to _die. _She didn't want to end up moving back to England and returning to America only on an annual pilgrimage to tidy up graves and reflect on what might have been. She lost Ray once, and she knew she simply couldn't bear to lose him again. Ever.

'I, umm… have to go,' she said vaguely.

'Good luck,' Elizabeth called after her.

When Neela returned to the apartment, she let herself in tentatively. She had no idea what to expect, she didn't even know if Ray would still be there. She hoped with all her heart that he would be. As she stepped further into the room, she heard music coming from the bedroom.

'Ray?'

'In here.'

Her heart in her mouth, she made her way through to the back of the apartment, where their bedroom was. The door was ajar, and with a trembling hand, she pushed it open, afraid of what she might find. Ray was sitting on the bed, his head in his hands, and surrounded by a mess of half filled boxes, an open suitcase with some clothes haphazardly thrown into it. The music that she had heard playing was the CD he had made her, and given to her at thee wedding. The song he wrote for her was on repeat.

She stood there in silence, trying to work out what this meant and to summon up the courage to say something. In the end, he beat her to it.

Looking up at her, with tears in his eyes, he said softly, 'I don't want to go.'

A huge sense of relief coursed through her body, and she felt a smile break out onto her face, the breath that she was holding leaving her lungs in a rush of emotion. She made her way across the room to where he was sitting on the bed.

Carefully, she knelt on the bed, straddling his lap and took his beautiful, beloved face in both her hands. She kissed him deeply, easing his mouth open with the movement of her own, then slipped her tongue in alongside his, savouring the taste and feel of him, knowing how close she had come to losing this forever. Feeling him respond to her made her feel safe and whole again, at last. She knew they'd never let things get this bad again, never let arguments and stubbornness get in the way of what was important. Each other.

Finally, she broke away from him. 'Good,' she whispered. 'Because I don't want you to. Ever.'

The following year, when the girls had disappeared off, and Elizabeth had sloped across town to spend her usual time at Romano's grave, she thought there was something that looked different about it as she walked towards it. As she got closer, she realised that it was free of its usual coating of grass and muck, and there was a small bunch of flowers sitting in the vase.

For a moment, she wondered who on earth might have put them there, then she remembered the conversation she had had in this cemetery last year. Neela wouldn't have known where to contact her of course, but Elizabeth felt that this was her way of saying thank you.

She and Robert had missed their chance, but it wasn't in vain, because Neela and Ray had obviously not made the same mistake.


	13. Doug and Carol

Disclaimer: As before. The song used at the end is Good Riddance (Time of your life) by Greenday. I'm sure someone else did it first, but I don't know who, so Greenday get the credit. Obviously it's not compulsory, but if you don't know it, find it and have a listen. Oh, and I suppose I should say, I cast a small aspersion on pharmaceutical companies in this chapter in passing – I mean nothing by it, I had to think of something and I watched The Constant Gardener this morning, so my head is full of conspiracy theories.

Author's Note: Thank you for all the reviews again. Sorry for the terribly long wait for this chapter, it was all the song's fault. Thank you for all your suggestions, they were all great and just what I was looking for, but none of them was the _right _song. Then I was sitting in my room the other day with my window open, and from somewhere in the village I heard this song playing, and I knew then it was what I was looking for. Of course, it's nothing like what I asked for, but that's just typical! And I hope you like this chapter. It's the last chapter – I will, of course, still be going back and filling in the gaps, so this story isn't over yet, but this is how I'm going to leave it. I was going to wait to post it, but I'm impatient, so here you go. It's set three years after the Susan chapter. (Right, now on the third try, I think I've got all the lyrics transferred across correctly. Damn computers.)

Doug Ross was sitting at the table in the kitchen, sipping at a mug of strong black coffee and indulging in a leisurely perusal of the morning newspaper. It was full of the usual stories of depression and hopelessness, and he soon skipped to the sport pages, which he viewed to be far more interesting than the tales of woe of what was wrong with the world. He saw enough of that at work.

He had a couple more minutes of peace to bask in before he heard the sound of a collection of footsteps rumbling through the house above him, then come racing down the stairs. He heard Carol shouting after them.

'Slowly, kids. You sound like a herd of elephants.'

'Sorry mum,' Tess replied over her shoulder, not sounding incredibly apologetic but at least taking the time to try.

They burst into the kitchen with an explosion of noise. Kate, her and Tess now nineteen, and both had just returned home on their summer break at home after their first year at College, was arguing with Danny, their fifteen year old brother, and Tess, as usual the sensible one, was trying to intervene.

'Danny,' she said, 'Kate was only teasing you.'

'Well, I don't like being teased,' he replied petulantly, plonking himself down on the chair opposite his father and crossing his arms, a boyish scowl on his face.

'I know you don't,' Tess tried to soothe him while she took three bowls out of the cupboard and poured some cereal into each. 'Kate, leave him be. Stop having a go,' she admonished her sister as Kate passed her the carton of milk from the fridge, taking a couple of unladylike gulps from it before she did so.

Just then, Carol appeared in the doorway with an armful of laundry to add to the basketful already sitting by the machine. 'Kate Ross, how many times do I have to tell you, don't drink milk out of the carton.' She sighed in frustration. 'Doug, why didn't you say something?'

He looked up from the newspaper distractedly. 'Say something about what?' he asked, clueless.

'Never mind. Now come on kids, eat your breakfast, the school bus will be here in ten minutes Danny. Try not to be late _again. _And Tess, Kate, you've got to go to work.' They were both working at the local mall to earn a bit of money over the summer.

A short while later, the children had raced out of the house, as late as ever, to catch the bus and go to work, and she and Doug had the place to themselves again. He was still reading the paper, as if the whole breakfast whirlwind of chaos and chatter had passed him by.

Finally, he looked up at her and grinned, and she realised that his feigned interest in the newspaper had been utterly that – feigned. But she couldn't stay mad at him when he smiled like that; who could? She couldn't believe after all these years he still made her pulse race. Well, he always had though, hadn't he?

'You could have helped me with them Doug,' she reprimanded. 'They _listen _to you.'

He smiled at her again, and got up to take her in his arms. 'They listen to you too. And they're fine, they made the bus okay. You worry too much.'

She let him pull her into his embrace, and rested her head against his shoulder. They weren't exactly young anymore, but she loved the life they had built for themselves. They still lived in Seattle, where Doug worked as a Paediatric ER attending. He was forever ducking in and out of trouble, as impulsive and impetuous as ever, but he had a stubborn streak in him that she knew would never change. He always defended what he believed to be right so steadfastly, even though more often than not he went about it the wrong way, but she wouldn't change him for the world, not now.

They had been happy for a long time. When she first moved up to Seattle, she had been in some sort of blind whirlwind of needing to be with him that just seemed to overtake her in a way she didn't quite understand. Luka Kovac had been handsome and charming, but he could never be what Doug was to her, and neither could anyone else. Tag had been kind and loving, Shep had been great fun, at least at the beginning, and always stopped her from taking herself too seriously. But Doug was just… He hadn't always been right for her, but as her life had come together and his began to splinter apart, the past seemed to fade away and they found their way back to each other.

It hadn't been easy. He had missed her, but suddenly having a live-in girlfriend, along with two crying infants, had been a big shock to the system for him. Hats off to him though, he had adapted to fatherhood, and marriage, sooner and better than she had expected him to. Then four years after the twins, they had had Danny and they were the sort of happy family unit that up until fairly recently before then, she had barely dared to dream of. In her own entirely biased opinion, all three children were gorgeous. The girls, although not identical, both favoured Doug, with olive skin and easy smiles, and Danny had her Ukrainian roots. Tess had something of an old head on young shoulders; she was wise, the sensible one, occasionally taking her status as the oldest a little too seriously, but had a wicked sense of humour that outweighed the more solemn side of her nature. Kate was the complete opposite, and had the same rebellious, outspoken streak that her father did, the same problem with authority. Sometimes Carol wanted to tear her hair out over her, but just like Doug, Kate had a knack of getting herself through the various scrapes and situations she found herself in intact. She used to get more letters from the school about Kate in one semester than she had ever had about Tess. As for Danny, he was a happy, healthy boy, more interested in shooting hoops with his father or his friends than anything else, and so far, hadn't presented Carol with anything to worry about.

As for herself, she was still a nurse. Not a nurse manager though; that had been a hassle from the moment she took it on at County. She had become a nurse to help people, to cure people, not to juggle figures she barely understood and decide which of her friends she got to fire that day. She worked two shifts a week at the same hospital as Doug, and another two shifts at a government funded care clinic similar to the one she had been forced to give up the running of back in Chicago.

She didn't regret not going on to become a doctor, even though she knew there had been plenty of people, like Kerry Weaver, who had been so keen for her to go for it. It had never been about actually _becoming _a doctor for her, it had been about having the chance, being able to do it if she wanted to, although it would have been nice to get an MD to add onto her name and not have to be ordered around by fresh faced, know it all interns like Maggie Doyle. It had given her some control over her life, which she had needed badly at the time, and she had derived a great sense of satisfaction from passing her MCATs. It was as if she had proved, even if only to herself, that she was as capable and strong as anyone else. Her only regret was that she hadn't done it sooner.

If she'd had something like that to focus on, she knew she would never have done anything so extreme, so _stupid _as that suicide attempt. In fact, she didn't really want to give it such a significant title as _suicide attempt. _It hadn't been that. It hadn't even been a cry for help as such. She'd gotten low and confused, and swallowed a bunch of pills. She didn't like it sounding any more important than that. It was so far behind them, they hadn't spoken about it in years, and the kids certainly had no idea.

Doug held his wife quietly, enjoying the feeling of having her in his arms and the smell of her hair, something sweet and slightly herbal that he had never quite managed to figure out. Her hair had always smelt like that, even back years ago in Chicago.

Chicago.

He didn't miss it. The place had given him Carol, but other than that, he had little to thank it for. He had constantly locked horns with those in authority, officious, jumped up people like Anspaugh and Weaver, and although he had enjoyed the work there, hard and grim though it invariably was, he hadn't been sorry to go when he'd been offered the opportunity in Seattle.

He'd done some stupid things there. After he and Carol had broken up, he'd allowed his life to run away with itself. The series of one night stands, some of which hadn't mattered, and some that he knew he really should have been ashamed of himself for, like the med student, Harper Tracy, his father's girlfriend, and the poor woman that had had an epileptic fit and he'd had to take her into the ER, earning himself censure from everyone when he couldn't remember her name. He couldn't remember it even now. He'd also drank too much, argued too much, and had a damn good go at simply self destructing. If it hadn't been for Carol, who then had offered him nothing more than friendship, and that only reluctantly, he knew he would almost certainly have succeeded.

Apart from Carol, the only other good thing he felt he'd taken from County was his friendship with Mark Greene. Mark had been the voice of his conscience throughout years of misdemeanours, and despite the many bollockings he'd given him, Doug knew that enough of them had been justified to ensure that they never had a lasting effect on their friendship. Mark had been there for him through some of the tougher times, when Carol had overdosed, when his father died.

Doug regretted the fact that he hadn't been able to repay the favour. Of course, Mark being Mark, he hadn't told them about the tumour, not until it was back the second time and things weren't looking so good. Even then, he'd persistently played down the seriousness of his condition, and it wasn't until Elizabeth had called them to say that Mark and Rachel were in Hawaii, and she was taking Ella and going to them, because it sounded like this was the end, that it had really sunk in for Doug that he was about to lose his best friend and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. He'd gone through the usual machinations of survivor's guilt – he should have been there, he should have made more time to visit, to talk. Of course, he knew as well as anyone that he was in no way at fault for an inoperable brain tumour, but he still thought he should have been a better friend.

And he should definitely have gone to the funeral. Both Elizabeth and Susan, separately and no doubt without the knowledge of the other, had called him and asked him to come, Elizabeth more formally and Susan had begged him in a quiet, tremulous voice that Doug knew didn't begin to cover her sorrow.

'Please Doug,' she had said. 'You have to be there.'

'I don't know Susan,' he had said evasively. 'It's been busy at work lately.' He mentally kicked himself for using such an insultingly pathetic excuse.

'Doug, Mark has _died._'

'I know, God, I know. I'm just not sure if I can…'

'The rest of us have to,' she'd replied sharply, berating him for his cowardice. 'Please, you and Carol must come. Mark would want you there, and I need you there, for him. It wouldn't be right without you.'

'I'll see what I can do,' he had told her, understanding that she thought it was important that all the key figures in Mark's life were there at his funeral.

He had honestly tried to find the courage to go, as much for Susan as anyone. He had heard in her tone how much she wanted him and Carol to be there, but when the day before the funeral dawned, crisp and bright and cold, he couldn't bring himself to board that plane and Carol, grief stricken herself over her own loss of a close friend, had let him get away with it.

Now he wished he'd gone. Having never been back to Chicago, he hadn't even visited his grave. One day, he promised himself. One day.

He let go of Carol and bent to kiss her tenderly before returning to his seat at the table. She was about to join him when they heard the sound of the post hitting the mat out in the hallway. She went to fetch it, and sat down, starting to sift through it.

'Is there anything interesting?' he asked.

'I don't know yet, let me see.' She examined, one by one, the envelopes she was holding. 'Junk, junk, bill,' she paused in her synopsis to raise a cynical eyebrow at him, 'junk, oh, bill again and…'

Her attention was caught by something a little out of the ordinary. It was a small, stiff envelope, addressed in a handwriting that she thought was familiar but couldn't seem to place. He had noticed her silence, so looked up and watched as she turned the envelope over in her hands, trying to work out what it might be.

'And something interesting looking with a Chicago postmark.'

'Chicago?' He found it odd that he should have been thinking of the place just minutes ago, and now a letter arrived from there. If he believed in fate, he'd definitely call that a sign. 'What is it?'

Instead of answering his question, she carefully slid a finger under the flap of the envelope, and tore it open. Inside was an invitation. She read it out.

'_To _Doug and Carol, _you are invited to Haleh Adams' surprise retirement party at Ike Ryan's, Chicago on July 19__th__, starting at 8pm. Smart Dress._ _RSVP Chuny Marquez or Hope Morris…_' Carol paused after she had finished, allowing herself to take in what she had said. 'Well,' she said eventually, 'I can't say that I was expecting it to be that.'

'No,' he agreed, with a soft chuckle. 'Who would have thought that Haleh was still there after all these years?'

'And Chuny too, look, she's one of the RSVP contacts.'

Doug looked at the invite his wife was holding in her hand. If this wasn't telling him to go to Chicago, he wasn't sure how much clearer it could be. 'So, do you want to go?' he asked.

Carol thought about it. She imagined it would feel very strange going back there after all these years, but strange didn't necessarily mean it would be a negative experience. Besides, it was Haleh's retirement party; she couldn't miss that. She felt rather flattered in fact, that they still remembered her, and someone thought she and Doug warranted an invite. She hadn't really kept in touch with anyone, so she didn't know they got her address. It had probably taken quite a bit of detective work. That sort of effort definitely deserved their attendance as a reward.

'Yes, I think so. What about you?'

'Why not?' he shrugged, not giving away the real reason why he was keen to go.

'Do you think it's a taking the kids sort of a thing? It's in Ike's, but surely they'll be all right to be in there as long as they're not drinking.'

'Why don't you call Chuny and ask her?' he suggested.

A month later, Doug and Carol, and the three children, fought their way through baggage claim at Chicago Airport. Even though the kids wouldn't know anybody, they'd all liked the sound of a party, and Carol thought that, like children always did, they wanted to get the gossip on what their parents had been like when they were younger. She hoped no-one would tell them too much. As well as the party, they'd decided it would be nice to take Tess and Kate back to their birthplace, show them and Danny around the city, so they had brought them along. They were intending to make a long weekend of it, as they were sure that there would be plenty of people at the party that they would want to see again.

Doug and Danny gathered together their bags as she, Tess and Kate stood back, away from the throng a little. Carol ran her hand through her hair wearily, she hated travelling, even though the flight had only been four hours. She couldn't wait to get to see everyone. She'd spoken briefly to Chuny on the phone, but she had told her to call this Hope Morris person, who was really organising the party. Chuny confessed her name was only on the invite as an RSVP contact as someone to make sure Hope didn't get carried away. Apparently she was the ER party planner, and prone to get rather overexcited at the prospect of organising festivities of some kind. Weddings were her speciality, Chuny explained, but anything would do.

She'd not quite known what to make of Hope over the phone. She seemed nice, but her over effusive friendliness had overwhelmed Carol a bit, and she'd decided to reserve judgement until she actually met her. Hope had told her though, who was expected back in town for the party, and allayed Carol's fears that she and Doug wouldn't know anybody. It sounded like it was going to be a real reunion, as well as, hopefully, a good send off for Haleh, who after goodness knows how many years of service, definitely deserved something amazing to mark her tireless efforts.

She'd organised a hire car for the few days they were in the city, and once the bags were gathered together, she dug out the paperwork she needed and led the way to the counter they were meant to be collecting the keys from. Before long, they were all loaded into it, and Doug was driving them to their hotel.

Once they'd got there, and settled in, she noticed that Doug was very quiet. She supposed, to begin with, it was simply the memories catching up with him, and she understood that, but after a while, she asked him what was wrong.

'Nothing,' he replied, in a way that told her for sure that there was.

'Come on,' she said quietly, so the children wouldn't overhear, 'what is it?'

'Well, I thought I might go and visit Mark's grave, but…' He was unsure. He wanted to go and see his best friend, but he was reluctant, guilt niggling at him persistently.

'You should go,' Carol said instantly.

'Do you want to come with me?'

She shook her head. 'I'll probably go at some point over the weekend, but I think you should go on your own to begin with. I'll do something with the kids, we might go up and see Lake Michigan or something.'

Doug stood in front of the grave of his friend, and felt the guilt strangely fade away. It was as if Mark was telling him that it was okay. Typical Mark. He'd never blamed anyone for anything, and certainly had let Doug get away with far too much over the years. 'Hey buddy,' he began, 'how's things? Been a while, hasn't it?'

He thought of all the things that he had done since Mark died, how he had been privileged enough to watch his children grow into confident, capable young adults and the years of marriage he had been able to enjoy with Carol. It struck him as desperately sad that Mark, who had always been a better person – _the least cynical ER doc he knew_, he'd called him once – than the rest of them put together, had had all that robbed from him.

'I'm sorry I didn't come to the funeral. I know I should have done, but… I just couldn't, neither could Carol. Guess we didn't really bank on you upping and leaving us. What I wouldn't give to shoot one last hoop with you man.'

He let his mind travel back to all those times he and Mark, often Carter as well, in all sorts of crazy weather had messed around outside the ER, playing basketball to try to wind down after a difficult day, or to get psyched up for a busy one. His life was a whole lot easier now, and happier, it was true, but he'd give quite a lot to swap back, just for one afternoon. He missed his friend badly. He stood there quietly for a while longer, going over old times in his mind, mentioning a few of the better ones. Then, with a promise that next time, it wouldn't be as long, he slipped away.

Carol didn't ask him much about it, just a sidelong look, and a, 'Better?' to which he nodded.

The following night, they walked into Ike's with some trepidation. Carol smiled to see that the place didn't look like it had changed a bit over the years. The only notable difference was that there were numerous bunches of balloons dotted around the place, and a few banners offering Haleh good luck wishes on her retirement. She looked around, trying to see anyone she recognised. Soon, she picked out a tall figure, much taller than anyone else in the room, and made her way towards him.

'Luka.'

He turned around, and a wide smile spread over his face. He stepped towards her, and as he did so, Carol realised that he had with him Abby Lockhart, the OB nurse. 'Carol, it's good to see you again.'

Luka was looking distinguished these days, with a sprinkling of silver at his formerly dark temples, but was as tall and handsome as ever. He bent to kiss her on each cheek. 'You remember Abby, of course.'

'Of course I do, it's nice to see you again.' She looked back over her shoulder. 'Kate, Tess, come here. Girls, this is one of the people that helped to deliver you. Abby Lockhart, meet Tess and Kate.'

Abby laughed as she saw the two, practically grown women before her. 'My god, that makes me feel old,' she said. 'How old are you guys now?'

'Nineteen,' they answered in chorus.

'That's frightening. Really frightening.' She turned back to Carol. 'Oh, and it isn't Abby Lockhart anymore by the way.' She held out her left hand to display the simple gold band she had demanded eleven years ago. 'It's Doctor Abby Kovac.'

Carol didn't know which she was the most shocked at, the _Doctor _or the _Kovac. _'Wow, congratulations. On both. How long?'

'The Doctor for fourteen years now, the Kovac for eleven. We live in Croatia now, and we've got two children, Joe and Anela.'

Carol looked up at Luka as Abby relayed their news, and she could see the deep happiness and peace in his face. She hadn't known him long, and it had been a long time ago, but he hadn't been like that then. This was a man, a couple, who were utterly happy.

She realised Doug must be feeling left out, and drew him forwards. 'This is my husband, Doug. I think he left County before you arrived, so I don't expect you've met before. Doug, this is Luka and Abby.'

They chatted away for a while, then a blonde woman burst through the doors.

'Right everyone, get in your places please,' Hope called out. 'Chuny's just called to say that she'll be getting Haleh here in about three minutes.'

'Places?' Carol hissed at Abby.

'You won't have met Hope before, would you?' she asked dryly. Carol shook her head. 'She's a party Nazi. Don't worry about the places, just stand here with us. Hope will be too excited to notice anyway.'

'Who exactly is she?' Carol asked. 'Does she work at County? On the phone, Chuny called her the ER party planner.'

'She used to work at County, she started there as an intern, what, eleven years ago I guess, because it was the year Luka and I got married, but she married one of the attendings and as soon as she finished her residency, she left County to run a free Church clinic. She's lovely, and she plans a mean wedding,' Abby said fairly, 'but you do have to ignore her half the time.'

'Ah, I see.'

Right then, the music coming from the jukebox was shut off, and some of the lights were dimmed a little, giving the impression that it was a quiet, regular night at the bar. As far as Haleh knew, Chuny was taking her for a few drinks at Ike's and whoever could would stop by.

'Who did you say was going to be here? The ER is full of temps so you have to be up to something.' Haleh paused at the door; she'd been expecting something, although she had no idea what. Nothing had happened during her shift, so when the new shift that came in to take over was made up entirely of temps, and she overheard Chuny putting the call out that they were closed to traumas, she knew there must be some sort of party.

Chuny smiled at her. 'Oh, we scraped a few people together. Go on in.'

A little tentatively, Haleh pushed the door open, and almost shut it again right away when after a moment of dark silence, an explosion of light and noise and streamers hit her. Everywhere there were people, colleagues both past and present, yelling out '_SURPRISE_'.

She looked around at the sea of faces. Did she even _know _all these people? She glanced over her shoulder at Chuny. 'Don't tell me Hope planned this.'

'Of course. Who else?'

For a minute, Haleh looked fierce and Chuny was worried that this whole surprise thing, initially her idea, hadn't been such a wise one, then her colleague's face cracked into a wide smile, and Chuny breathed a sigh of relief. Haleh addressed the bar loudly. 'So who's going to buy this retiree a drink then?'

Over by the bar, Neela was standing, with margarita in hand, and chatting to Harper. Through the window, she could see Ray outside on the phone, probably telling Brett to get his ass in gear and hurry up. The band, including Ray, was meant to be playing later. They should have been at Ike's two hours ago to set up, and Ray was seething.

Harper also had a margarita in hand, but was far less relaxed than Neela, checking her watch and her cellphone alternatively every couple of minutes. In the end, Neela gave up trying to make conversation.

'Harper, he'll be fine,' she said in a knowing voice.

Her friend's words brought her back into the room. 'I'm sorry Neela, I'm doing that awful worried mother thing, aren't I?'

Neela laughed. 'No more than any other new mum Harper. You should have seen me when I had to go back to work after I had Lily. I was calling to see how she was every fifteen minutes. I was even singing nursery rhymes on speakerphone during a splenectomy. Dubenko came in and caught me at it and nearly killed me.'

Harper grinned briefly at the idea of the tone deaf Neela singing in the middle of surgery, but was soon chewing at her lip worriedly again. 'But work's one thing, I feel sort of… guilty going out and enjoying myself. I don't like to leave him…'

'Jacy's fine, she brought up Ray for goodness' sake. What could be harder than that?'

'But she's looking after so many of them.'

Jacy lived in Chicago now. She had had no real ties in Baton Rouge, and after she found out how much Neela and Ray were spending on childcare – not that they couldn't afford it, but still – shortly after Neela went back to work after Jago she had offered to move up here to look after the children. They hadn't been sure at first; it seemed like a lot to ask, and although Ray's relationship with her was so much closer these days, he wasn't certain that it was a good idea having her so nearby. But she'd been subtly insistent, and in the end, they'd agreed to a trial period; after all, it would be better for the kids to have them looked after by family. And the second she was there, they never wanted her to leave. It was hard to imagine how they had ever coped without her.

Tonight, she had bravely volunteered to not only look after their two, but Matthew and Rebecca Morris (Hope and Morris's second child, a daughter, had been born about eighteen months after Jago; they were going to beat Ray and Neela to a third though, Hope had recently announced she was pregnant again), Joe and Anela, and Harper and Carter's new baby, who was just ten weeks old. This was the first time they'd left him.

'She's not doing it single handed, Joe's twelve now, and he's a good boy, he's perfectly capable of mucking in. And there's Mrs Goldstein next door, she's going to come round as well to help. They're all good kids; her biggest trouble with Lily, Matthew and Nela will be getting them to go to bed; they'll occupy themselves quite happily.'

'Still though.' She met Neela's eyes awkwardly. 'Mark's not exactly like… other children, is he?'

Neela laid her hand over Harper's, feeling the eternity ring, rather than a wedding ring, that the older woman wore on her left hand. 'Harper, he's _exactly _like other children. And don't you ever let anyone tell you otherwise.'

Harper gave her a wan smile. 'Thank you. I know. It's nice to hear someone say it though.'

Ray came back in, grumbling under his breath. Neela reached out and caught his hand, pulling him towards her. He obliged by winding an arm round her waist and bending to kiss her cheek. 'I'm going to kill Brett when he gets here,' he muttered.

'Relax darling. Brett is Brett, and he always will be. They'll be here in time, you're not meant to be playing until the party's up and running anyway.' She pulled up a barstool. It was high and awkward, but Ray was well practised at using his prosthetics these days. Hardly anything caused him a problem. 'Here, sit down, calm down, and have a drink.'

He climbed onto the stool. Only someone looking closely would have noticed that he did it with a little more care than others may have done. 'I'm fussing, aren't I?'

'Like an old woman,' Neela said emphatically. 'You're nearly as bad as Harper.'

Ray gave her exactly the same knowing smile as his wife just had. 'Mark will be fine. And Mum will call in an instant if there's anything wrong, you know she will.'

Harper smiled back at them and sipped at her drink in defeat. Ray and Neela seemed determined that she was going to have a good time tonight, so she supposed she might as well stop worrying and let her hair down. It had been a while since she'd had a decent night out, but she was sure that motherhood couldn't have changed her _that _much. One thing was for sure, she could drink these two young know-it-alls under the table, no problem.

'You're right, she will.' She paused to drain her glass. 'So who's for another then?'

Carter was scanning the room, trying to find Harper. He wanted to know if she'd heard from Jacy at all. He wouldn't have admitted it, but he was just as jumpy as she was, perhaps more so. He smiled when he eventually caught sight of her. She and Neela, laughing wildly, were downing shots of tequila. From that, he assumed things to be going fine, and told himself firmly to stop worrying, difficult though that was.

He was about to go over to them when he felt a hand on his arm.

'Carter?'

He spun round, and as soon as he saw who was talking to him, he swept her off her feet in delight, and spun her round before setting her back down. 'Carol! It's fantastic to see you.'

Carol staggered a little and laughed. 'Carter, I am _far _too old for that. See, you've given me grey hairs.' She indicated to her thick black curls, falling loose around her shoulders this evening, which was now liberally speckled with grey.

Carter laughed. 'I don't think you can blame me for those.' He liked that everyone had come back; he didn't feel so damn old anymore.

She planted a big kiss on each cheek. 'How are you? Abby just told me you were here. She says you're still at County.'

He had found, since he and Harper had been firmly together, that he could now hear Abby's name and think of her as being Luka's wife, the mother of his children, without the pain that that had once caused. He remembered when he had first found out she was pregnant with Luka's baby. Pratt had told him, in Darfur, amongst the endless sand and suffering, and Carter had been surprised, hurt, forced to discipline his face against showing too much emotion. If she'd moved on with someone else, it would have been all right – no less than he'd done with Kem – but when he heard that, he couldn't help but wonder if she'd always loved Luka the most.

Now though, it didn't matter. He and Harper had been booked to go out to Croatia for a visit to them in the fall, although now with Mark, things were a little more complicated, and they weren't sure yet if the holiday would be going ahead. He realised Carol was still looking up at him expectantly.

'Yes, I am. I spent some time in Africa, did some humanitarian work, but I came back after a few years. Guess I just couldn't stay away.' He gave her a rueful smile.

'Oh, you love it, you know you do.'

He shrugged. 'What can I say?'

'Abby said you were married these days.' The statement came out as a question, and there was a twinkle in Carol's dark eyes that told him she wanted all the news. He opened his mouth to correct her when she spotted her husband moving through the crowd, and called out to him. 'Doug, over here, look who I've found.'

Within seconds, a hand was shaking his firmly, clapping him on his back. 'Doug, Carter was just about to tell us all about the lucky girl he's married to.'

Doug gave him an impressed look. 'Married, Carter? Congratulations.'

'Well, I'm not _actually _married,' he corrected. 'We're not doing the whole white dress and gold ring thing, it's not really her style. But yes,' he smiled, 'I am very happy with someone.'

'Well, come on, who is she? Don't say it's someone we know.' Doug asked.

Carter gave him a long, even look. 'Harper Tracy.' He had long since forgiven both Harper and Doug for what they did; he'd been angry and hurt at the time, but soon came to understand its unimportance, but he felt a touch of… competitiveness, he supposed, telling Doug now.

Carol, who obviously didn't know about Harper and Doug, or else didn't remember, had recalled who he was talking about, and was gushing about it, but Doug was silent. He was trying to work out what Carter was going to say, if he was just going to leave it like that, or make more of a thing out of it. He held his breath, but thankfully, he did not.

Looking back at Carol, Carter grinned proudly. 'Oh, it gets better, we've just had a baby as well. He's ten weeks old now. He's called Mark, after…'

He didn't need to finish the sentence. All three of them knew who it was after, and Carter felt a sense of satisfaction telling two of the very small number of people who really knew how much it meant to him to name his child after Mark Greene.

Carol squeezed his arm, the slightest hint of tears in her eyes. 'That's fantastic, Carter, it really is. You must be so…'

'I am.'

He wasn't sure why exactly he didn't tell them that baby Mark had been born with Down's Syndrome. It wasn't that he was ashamed, far from it, but it wasn't exactly something that came up naturally in conversation. He didn't like seeing people's faces when they found out; the mix of sympathy and awkwardness, the uncertainty of what to say, of how to temper their new baby congratulations.

As far as he and Harper were concerned, the congratulations in no way required tempering. Their son was everything he had ever dreamed of. All right, so he might never get to follow in his daddy's footsteps as a doctor, or live his life in a conventional way, but he was a fabulous little person, already fun loving and playful, and fulfilled every requirement they could possibly have for their baby.

When they'd decided to try for a baby (as an alternative to marriage; Harper said that she'd been divorced once and it wasn't all her husband's fault, she'd been a bad wife but she thought she would make a better mother) they had known, of course, that academically there was an increased risk of Down's Syndrome due to Harper's age, but it wasn't something they had given a lot of consideration to. When he'd been born, there had been a little silence amongst the OB team – they went to Northwestern for the birth, Harper decided it wasn't quite right her own staff delivering her baby – but they knew that both the new parents were doctors, so had pulled themselves together and placed the child into Harper's expectant arms.

Carter had seen straight away in his son's crumpled, newborn, berry red face the tell tale signs of the Down's, and had been about to say something when Harper's words cut him off. 'Oh, oh John, he's _beautiful. _I can't believe… Our own baby. I've delivered hundreds, maybe even thousands of children, but I never thought… Oh, I _love _him.'

He bent down to kiss Harper's forehead, then the baby's. 'I love him too, I adore him. Are we… are we okay to call him Mark, like we agreed?'

'Of course. I think Doctor Greene would be honoured.'

Carter blinked away the tears and, not sure what else to do, met Harper's lips in a watery kiss – she was crying too. Then she'd looked at him deeply, questioningly. 'You don't mind, do you, that he's…?'

So she had noticed. Well, of course she would, he reasoned. She was an obstetrician of nearly twenty years experience after all. 'No,' he answered truthfully. 'I couldn't care less. He's our son, and he's beautiful and he's perfect, and I love him with all my heart. Well, all of it I can spare from you, anyway.' He hesitated. 'You… don't either?'

'Never.'

Doug was talking to Kerry. He had been trying to avoid her, before deciding he was being unforgivably immature. He'd seen Susan talking to her; if Susan could do it, so could he.

'Kerry,' he smiled, and bent to kiss her cheek. 'What illustrious company I find myself in.'

'Doug, charming as ever.' She'd never been taken in by his charm. She was smiling at him now though, although he thought that could have been something to do with the almost empty glass of red wine she was holding. He doubted it was her first of the night.

'You've been doing well for yourself. Carol and I watched your documentary about the big pharmaceuticals, it was very good. Edgy. I didn't think you'd do something so…'

She smiled at him wryly. 'Dangerous? Risky?'

He acknowledged the hit. 'Well, yes.'

'Perhaps there's a little more to me than meets the eye, Doug,' she suggested. She raised an eyebrow. 'Perhaps there always was.'

She looked at him. She had had her fun, she made him squirm. She set down the wine glass and held out her arms to him. 'Oh, come here Doug. It's good to see you again. How are you getting on?'

Relief spread over his face. God, she was a bitch though, he thought as he hugged her. Did she actually enjoy torturing him? 'I'm well, _we're _well. Carol and I are very happy.'

'I'm glad to hear it. I can't believe how grown up those children of yours are. What are they all doing?'

'Well, the twins have just finished their first year at College. Tess is at Yale, she's going to major in Biochemistry, and Kate's at Ann Arbor. She's not sure what she's going to major in yet; she's the sort of kid who never quite knows.' Kerry looked impressed, particularly at Tess's achievements. 'And Danny's a bright kid, sporty, does well at school.'

'You must be very proud of them,' she said genuinely. He was about to ask her if she had children herself – he couldn't imagine it somehow – when she seemed to see someone in the crowd. 'Oh, there's someone you should meet if you get the chance Doug.' She pointed out a tall, slender man in his mid, maybe late, thirties. 'He's the Chief of the ER these days.'

'A bit young isn't he?'

Kerry shook her head. 'No. And you won't find a better Chief anywhere.'

Doug raised an eyebrow. 'Says you. He must be another administrative nut then.' Looking at the man though, Doug somehow doubted that, even as he said it.

'Oh no. He hates it. I don't think he's ever filled in a form in his life. He's got a… rather different management style than I did by all accounts.' Although she hadn't worked under Ray, it was well known how good a Chief he was considered to be. 'I think you'd like him.'

'Oh?' Doug felt she was trying to say something here, but he couldn't see where she was going with it.

Kerry gave him a long, piercing look. 'He's you, Doug. He's who you could have been if you hadn't let your ego get in the way,' she said. 'If something had ever happened to you to humble you.'

'What happened to him?'

'Watch him walk.' Doug did as he was told, but couldn't see whatever it was he was meant to be looking at. 'No legs,' Kerry said. 'He lost them in an accident. When he started as an intern, he was a womaniser, a good doctor, but had little regard for his job.'

Doug railed at the slight. 'I always cared about my job Kerry. That isn't fair.'

'You did whatever you wanted, with regard for no-one but yourself.'

'I put the patients first, ahead of procedure and protocol.' He was getting angry.

'So hot headed,' she said. 'Just like always. I don't know how Carol puts up with you.'

'Carol loves me,' he returned, annoyed that after so long, this woman could still drive him up the damn wall.

Kerry smiled at him enigmatically. 'Go and introduce yourself to Ray Barnett, Doug. Ask him about what he's doing in the ER, any… _new appointments _he has made recently. And just for the record, I approve.'

He frowned at her in confusion. It was only later, when, for once, he followed Weaver's orders – first time for everything – and he sought out this Ray Barnett and had been chatting to him for a while that he understood. He'd just proposed, and his request approved, that there be a full time ER Paediatric attending. There hadn't been one at County for a long time apparently, but it was something he felt to be important.

When Doug had first pitched the idea of an ER Paediatric attending, Weaver had blocked him every step of the way. Whoever would have thought she'd have the grace to admit she was wrong?

Haleh had taken to the stage. Naturally, she was appalled to hear that Ray's band would be playing later, and had insisted that there would be 'some real music before the noise began.'

As she began to sing, she looked out at them all, around the bar, she couldn't believe that this was the very last time she'd be with these people, at a proper ER party. There had been so many over the years, Christmases, Thanksgivings, birthdays, weddings. And she'd been at every damn one of them. She'd seen all these people through half their lives, some of them. She'd known Carter twenty five years. Chuny and Malik as well. Others, like Doug and Carol, even longer, although it had been a long time since she had last seen them.

People seemed to have come from all over. She didn't know how Hope and Chuny had organised it all. Everyone from the ER had turned up, from the porters and janitors right up to Ray, the Chief. There were paramedics, some of the local cops and firefighters that inevitably spent plenty of time in the ER.

It seemed like pretty much everyone she had ever worked with had turned up, well, who had been invited anyway. There was Lydia, old now, Conni, Yosh – just about the only nurses who had ever left. Someone had tracked Jerry down. Since the shooting, he'd thrown in work to go on a motorcycle tour of America. Just him and a Harley. Then he'd had such a good time, he'd decided to do the same in Europe, then Australia. Apparently Africa was next on the list. Weaver was back as well, for the first time since Ray and Neela's wedding. She was a hot shot documentary producer now. Since she'd really hit the scene with the countless awards she'd won for the Croatian medical service documentary she'd made, with Abby and Luka's help, she'd gone on to do more of the same, most recently with a critically acclaimed and politically dangerous piece on the corruption of the big pharmaceutical companies.

There were more; Susan and her husband were back, she looked like she had recovered well from her accident that had found her back in Chicago a few years ago in less celebratory circumstances, Abby and Luka on another visit from Croatia – they usually were back in the States every couple of years or so. Doug and Carol were even there, with their three children, nearly grown up themselves.

Most of the ER children were too young for Ike's, but Sam had brought Alex along. He was twenty five now, far from a child, and would shortly be starting his fourth year of med school, right here in Chicago. He'd already been working at County as a third year student, and everyone had been impressed by him, both his attitude and his ability. Despite Sam's advice that he should look elsewhere, he had his heart set on Emergency Medicine, and Ray had intimated that they would be happy to have him as an intern, obviously subject to Carter's approval as Residency Director. He was a different person from the moody, troubled child Haleh remembered him as, and Sam's eyes were full of pride.

She'd watched them overcome some enormous trials. Weaver and her disability, Carter's addiction. Abby's periodic dips into alcoholism, and Luka's slow recovery from the loss of his first family. The hard time they'd all been through when Mark died. Then, later, Sam forever battling against the hand life dealt her, Abby and Neela descending into some dark, half life as Luka and Ray left, the struggle Ray and Neela had gone through when he returned. And then, lately, Carter and Harper, and the problems they faced with their son. None of it had been easy.

Yet they were all here, together. Happy, despite everything they had been through. They had all been very personal crises, but there was a feeling that somehow they had gone through them together.

Haleh thought of all those who hadn't been able to make it, those who had fallen by the wayside. Poor Lucy Knight. She'd always tried so hard, she wanted so much to be a good doctor, a success, only to die at the hands of a patient. It was a risk they all ran, every day. You never knew when the next person who walked in the door, someone you were trying to help, was going to turn on you. Then there was Mark Greene, the infamous Mark Greene. Even now, there was still the sense that he was missing, that he should be here. It was a particularly poignant feeling tonight, with Doug and Carol here, Susan as well. Elizabeth Corday hadn't come. Weaver said she'd heard from her from time to time, that she'd remarried, but that was all anyone seemed to know.

There had been other deaths, Romano, not that Haleh could think of anyone who might grieve his loss. Michael Gallant. The shadow of her first husband's death had passed from Neela's face now, but she hadn't forgotten. She wasn't the only one; Greg Pratt and Jing-Mei, also here tonight enjoying a break from the never ending toil of emergency medicine, although at Northwestern not County these days, had a four year old boy named Michael. After word had got back to them all at County of his birth, his name, Neela had been very quiet for a couple of days, but when Frank had tried to needle her about it, she'd said in a soft, dignified, sort of a way that she thought it was a lovely gesture and that she was sure Michael would be proud to be remembered in such a way. People left her alone about it after that.

After a while, she stepped down from the stage. Everyone was cheering her, then someone, Morris she thought, started shouting out, 'Speech, speech!' and as the request echoed through the crowd, she decided to oblige.

'All right, all right folks. I'm not going to bore you with a long speech, I'll leave that to our Chief –' Everyone laughed.

At the ER departmental dinner last year, there had been a mix up and the food hadn't been served for three hours; everyone, including Ray, had got roaring drunk instead, which was fine, until Ray had had to do his speech. As Morris had set fire to his speechcards in the flame of a candle, he'd had to make it up on the spot, and it had degenerated into a thirty minute drunken rambling, ended finally by an equally drunken Neela staggering to her feet and cutting him off with a long, wet kiss which earned them as many heckles and catcalls as the speech had.

'But I'd like to say thank you, to you all for coming tonight, and for all been such fantastic colleagues for the last forty odd years. I'm honoured to have known you, and worked with you all. So,' she raised her glass. 'To you all. I'm going to miss you, but I'll tell you now, I'm not going to miss that place, not one bit. To County.'

'To County,' everyone echoed. Then Morris brandished his glass again. 'To Haleh.'

'To Haleh.'

The evening disintegrated, in the usual manner of ER parties, into drunken hilarity after that. Brett and the others finally arrived just before the point where everyone would have been too inebriated to have noticed their presence. Neela and Harper had dragged an unwilling Ray into their little tequila session, so he had mellowed sufficiently to not jump down an unrepentant Brett's throat.

By the time they had reached the final song, at nearly three in the morning, almost everyone was on the dancefloor. Frank and Malik were still sitting resolutely at the bar, as was Weaver, the three of them looking like they were going for a world record in how much red wine three people could put away, but other that, all the other reluctant dancers had been pressganged by the more enthusiastic.

'Okay guys,' Ray said into the microphone, 'this is your last one.' He grinned at the cries of _no _that greeted his announcement. Neela, watching him from the dancefloor, smiled up at him. He was glowing this evening, happy, fulfilled, like he had everything he had ever wanted from life. She was glad – she knew the feeling herself.

'Sorry, it is. This one is for all of you, and especially for Haleh. Goodnight guys.'

The band struck up the tune, and Ray's voice began to fill the room. He sounded husky from having sung and drunk too much, and the song was slower than anything up until that point in the evening.

'_Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road  
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go._'

Everywhere on the dancefloor, couples seemed to be forming. Luka and Abby, who had been dancing apart, each with a half of a slightly older couple who Ray thought he had been introduced to at some point this evening, both ex County workers, a Paediatrician and a nurse, smiled at each other and melted back into each other's arms. Carter and Harper, both a little unsteady on their feet, Morris and Hope, who must have been the only truly sober person in the room. Elsewhere, there was Susan and her husband, Pratt and Chen. Most of the nurses had found firemen or policemen. Sam was dancing with her son, but Alex was looking hopefully over at the Ross twins. They were both dancing with firemen, but one of them, Tess, seemed to be looking over her partner's shoulder in Alex's direction quite a lot.

He felt a little guilty that he had left Neela partnerless, although he had to say he was pleased that she hadn't found herself a fireman or cop of her own.

Then he felt Brett tap him on his shoulder. 'Go on, get down there and dance with your wife. She deserves it for putting up with you.'

He smiled at his friend, a wide, grateful smile that said thank you not only for tonight's gesture but for so much more, then, carefully laying his guitar to one side, climbed down from the stage. Already, Neela was at his side.

'Hey you,' she whispered.

'Hey,' he replied. She was looking up at him with such deep love that he didn't know what else to say. She insinuated herself into his arms, and he revelled in the feeling of her body against his. It was hard now to remember a time when they hadn't been like this. Nine years they'd been together now, six since they'd been married.

Back up on the stage, Brett had taken over on the microphone. His voice didn't quite have the depth or emotion of Ray's but he was still good, and there weren't too many people who were capable of telling the difference at this late stage in the evening.

_  
_'_So make the best of this test, and don't ask why.  
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time._'

'It took us a long time, didn't it?' Ray whispered into her hair.

'I think we learned our lesson.' She could feel his heart beating in her ear, where she had laid her cheek against his chest.

_  
_'_It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.  
I hope you had the time of your life._'

'I've had the time of my life with you Ray.'

'We've still got a lot more to go.' Slowly, he spun her out from him and twirled her, smiling as her long black hair flowed out behind her. She was more beautiful every day.

'I know,' she said, as she returned to his arms.

'_So take the photographs, and still-frames in your mind.  
Hang it on the shelf of good health and good time.  
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial.  
For what it's worth, it was worth all the while._'

He held her away from him for a moment, so he could look down into her eyes. 'It was worth it Neela, for me it was all worth it. You know that, don't you?' he asked earnestly.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing his head down to meet hers. When she spoke, her lips were so close to his that he felt the warmth of her breath. 'I do know Ray. It was worth it for me too.'

'Do you mean that?'

'Always,' she breathed, just before their lips met in a kiss that had the power to bind souls.

_  
_'_It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.  
I hope you had the time of your life._'

She broke away from him just long enough to murmur, 'I love you,' in his ear.

'I love you too.'

'_It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.  
I hope you had the time of your life._'


End file.
